


Looks like a solo tonight

by glovered



Series: When It Was You & Me [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5 Times, F/F, Femslash, Knifeplay, Sex Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 19:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4404077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glovered/pseuds/glovered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo wears her heart on her sleeve for everyone to see. Thieves just can't help themselves. Thank goodness Bela is one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I did realize after finishing that I'd screwed up the timeline, so in this fic, the Roadhouse hasn't burned down yet. Also, in _Dark Side of the Moon_ Ash actually does say he was a born-again Christian, his congregation's best snake handler. There is brief case-related, non-main character necrophilia.

On a Tuesday afternoon in late July, Jo wiped down the bar with a damp rag and pushed the salt shaker in to clink against the bottle of barbecue sauce. The clock read two in the afternoon.

One of the patrons had fallen asleep at his table just after lunch and was still snoring there with his hand in a puddle of beer, shotgun within reach. Meanwhile, the other three men currently wending away the afternoon hours at the Roadhouse were slumped back in their chairs, a picked over plate of onion rings between them. Napkins were crumpled, pint glasses were a quarter full and glowing gold in the hazy light. The men had come in separately but were now trading stories like old friends.

Really, they sort of were— the hunting lifestyle had a way of binding you together. If you survived. 

"You'll have to stab it four times," one man explained. "Right in the gullet. And the blade can't be just any old silver."

"Course not," sighed one of the others, rolling his eyes. "Because that would be too easy, right? Course it's gotta be harder to waste than that."

"Don't ask me why, it's just one of those things. And silver from South America is your best option."

"Always is," the one with the goatee, Frank, agreed. "I've read everything in the library that so much as mentions knives, from Burke's Kitchen Cutlery Companion to the damn Bible."

"Well _excuse_ me," the third crowed, syllables all drawn out. His accent was straight out of Alabama, and he had the road dust to prove it. He chuckled. "Looks like we've got a regular scholar on our hands here, boys."

"Shaddup and buy us another round."

"Not in a million years. Say, you heard about the latest on iron machetes being sold down in Louisiana?"

It was because of conversations like these that Jo could reliably say that she knew more about weaponry than any other 21-year-old girl in Nebraska. Couldn't learn any of this in college, she knew that much without needing to go see for herself.

A car pulled up outside, and the conversation subsided when the engine cut off. Jo paused, too, listening to the sound of footsteps creaking up the front steps. 

The Roadhouse was just one squat pitstop on a long stretch of empty highway. Roadtrippers dropped in from time to time — for a burger, for a drink — unaware of what world they'd just stepped into. Just last week Jo'd served a family of four wearing matching 'I Heart NYC' shirts even though they were a thousand miles and a whole other mindset away from the city. The mom had warned the kids against talking with their mouths full,oblivious to their location in a den of rag tag alcoholics and run-down heroes who'd seen much worse.

The figure that appeared in the doorway now was slim, backlit by the outside world. It took Jo a moment to make her out — this stranger, this girl.

She was obviously not a hunter, was Jo's first thought. She wore no visible weapons, no carefully hidden weapons either, and didn't carry herself like she was expecting an attack on her person. She was dressed in dark jeans and a navy blue top, and she was the kind of clean that screamed of the city life Jo had spent long years learning not to be jealous of. It was better to be on the fringes of society and in the life than to live as one of the general populous with the wool pulled over your eyes, was what she always told herself.

The girl's heels were loud against the wood floor as she approached the bar, almost like a knocking. 

Jo put on her just-a-normal-waitress face and a tightlipped smile. "Hi there," she said. "Welcome to the Roadhouse. What can I get you?"

The jukebox chose that moment to wind down. The other customers had fallen silent. Even Old Mike snuffled awake and peeled his face away from the sticky table top to sit straight in his chair, aware something was afoot. Hunter's instincts. 

Jo felt her smile falter when the girl didn't answer. And then the jukebox picked up again on Fly Me to the Moon, the girl seating herself gracefully on a stool and resting her chin on a manicured hand. 

She was absolutely gorgeous, with sleek hair and sharp, blue eyes. Not from around here, Jo thought with some yearning.

"Hello," the girl said, and snaked a Bud from the side of the counter.

Lightyears too slow, Jo protested, "You can't do that!"

The girl smiled. She slapped a ten dollar bill on the bar and Jo's eyebrows raised. 

"That better?"

"You need an opener for that?"

"Don't worry, I've got one." 

Jo watched her lift a fork from the tray of silverware and crack the bottle top off with the end. She caught Jo's surprise and gestured with the fork. "That's one the Queen taught me."

"The Queen spend much time in dingy bars?"

"You'd be amazed." She put the fork back in the spoon tray. Then, she turned, dismissing Jo completely to send a demure smile to the other side of the room. Jo watched the curve of it from her place behind the bar, as the girl purred, "Hello, boys."

You couldn't trust even the most innocent-type. 

"Afternoon," one of the trio said.

"Is there anything else I can get for you?" Jo asked loudly. Her momma wasn't working, so it fell to her to take care of any situation. Like this one.

The girl's eyes flicked Jo's way and gave her the once over, like maybe she thought Jo was too young to be working in a place like this. Or there was a slim chance that she was checking her for weapons. The former was normal, she'd leave soon. The latter, though, this girl was a hunter, and Jo had misread her.

The third option was that the girl was checking her out, but that was highly unlikely. 

"Who's asking?" she said, giving Jo another look.

"Look," Jo said. "I just want to take your order."

"Do you?" Smug, cocky. "The name's Bela. Bela Talbot. And I don't need anything."

Jo leaned with a hip against the bar, and said, cool as a pistol, "Lunch is on me, Bela." Seeing as her mom wasn't around and all. 

Not batting an eye, Bela said, "What if I'm only looking for information?"

"Well, maybe I can get that for you, too. How about you tell me where you're coming from and I'll see what I can do about tracking down what you need."

After a superior sort of hesitation, during which Jo raised an eyebrow, Bela said, "Ok then. I need to track down a Mr. Drake."

Jo thought about it. "It's not an Albert Drake, is it?" The guy came in here now and again.

"It is."

"What do you need him for?"

Bela lifted her chin. "He's a lover who scorned me."

"Really."

"Yes."

"Mr. Albert Drake?" Jo confirmed. "The seventy-year-old dude with one eye." 

Bela's mouth quirked but she held her ground. "That's correct," she said.

Jo rolled her eyes. "Tell me another one." 

Bela looked her over for a long while, like Jo had surprised her. Or at least provided some unexpected entertainment. "All right, then. Something Mr. Drake has in his collection happens to have secured my client's interest. I intend to set the two of them up with a deal."

"Deal, huh? And what exactly is it that you do?"

The men at the tables were listing close for the answer, too.

"My, my. Aren't we curious?" Bela said, and her refusal to engage made Jo narrow her eyes. Something about the question got her hackles up. You never knew with strangers. Words turned to code, always had to watch them for foul play. No one just walked in and out of the Roadhouse, you had to work for what you got. 

"Curiosity's my middle name," Jo said.

"I work the business end for collectors of antiquities, if you must know."

"Like an art dealer?"

Bela smiled again, slow and deliberate. "Right."

Frank stood, interrupting what felt to Jo like some sort of showdown, a moment of who would back down first. "I know the guy," he said. 

Bela looked his way. 

He turned his hat in his hands. "I know he can always use some extra dough, so if I can get a trade going, I know it'll help him out."

"Excellent."

While Bela chatted with the three old-timers Jo busied herself getting more nachos for Mike, startlingly uncomfortable at their exchange, at the fact some girl her age was here whose life couldn't have made her more different to Jo. She felt like she was up for judgement, even though no eyes were on her, even though this girl knew nothing about her. 

To take her mind off things, she brewed more coffee, although the bowl was cracked near the handle and coffee would all fizz out anyway with the next pot.

Ten minutes later, Bela stood suddenly. Something jolted in Jo's stomach, more than the jealousy, more than just interest in what life would be like if she were in this stranger's shoes.

"Heading out?" she blurted.

Bela raised her eyebrows and Jo only shrugged. There was something there, some yearning for Bela to stay that left Jo flushing at the embarrassment of it. She felt like they'd started a conversation that was far from being finished.

"I have all the information I came for. It was a pleasure to meet you all," Bela said, but didn't leave immediately. "That's a nice locket."

Jo touched the heart charm she wore, twisting the thin chain around her pinky. "Thanks. I got it from my mom when I graduated high school." She paused, before continuing, "Of course, I was home schooled for the last part of it, so it wasn't exactly real graduation, but I still finished all four years."

Bela looked nonplussed by this information, like she wasn't sure what to do with this offering between strangers. She finally asked, "Is it gold?"

"I...I'm not sure actually," Jo said, looking down at it.

"Hm." Bela leaned closer, over the counter. 

Jo noticed again how clean she was, almost too clean, if that was possible, her fingernails filed to perfection, the meticulous clean that reminded Jo of scrubbing blood off one's hands until there was not a trace of blood left.

"Anything in it?" Bela asked.

"That's for me to know," Jo said, dropping it under her shirt.

Bela met her eyes. "Secrets, then?" 

"I like to keep what's mine," Jo told her, shifting back to lean against the counter again.

Bela considered her for a moment before drawing back, then said, dryly, "I might drop by again. Don't miss me while I'm gone."

Jo scoffed. "Miss you? I don't even know you."

"True."

Then Bela was out the door, stepping into the bright world.

Jo sighed and picked up the rag off the bar again, ignoring her sixth sense that told her there was something worth following up on here, some trail of clues that would lead somewhere that promised to be interesting.

She would forget the interaction by that night, Bela just one of many people she'd serve that day. And if Bela ever came back — which was unlikely, given the cultivated air of boredom that belonged in silk somewhere far away — well, it was unlikely Bela would remember her, either.

"Oh and Jo?"

Jo jumped, nearly knocking over a row of glasses as Bela reappeared in the doorway. She managed to hold onto her dignity, grabbing a rag and pretending to wipe at the bar. "Yeah?"

Bela looked at her strangely. "...You do know there's a man with a tub of snakes outside, right?"

"Dammit, Ash!" Jo threw down the rag. "He's supposed to do that around back, not out front drawing attention to us! Momma's gonna kill him one of these days." She remembered, belatedly, that this was supposed to be a civilian establishment. "Because, uh, we don't want to alert the FDA. Because, uh, low health standards."

Jo mentally told herself to shut up, wincing.

Bela only said, "Right," before disappearing again, this time for good.

And only after she had gone, after Jo had stomped outside and told Ash to take his snakes down the road a bit like he'd promised, did Jo clear away the food baskets from the now-empty tables, and only after that did she collect Bela's half-finished beer.

And only then did she notice, that there, under the bottle and wet with condensation, was a folded hundred-dollar bill.

 

 

 

 

 

Jo had been right about one thing — she forgot all about that girl who'd passed through. Immediately in fact. Within days. With the way everyday life remained constant, it was pretty much like Bela had never been there at all.

"Albert Drake? Nope, don't know what happened to him," an old timer named Jackson said to her when she served him his plate of chocolate chip pancakes one morning. "Why you asking?"

"No reason," Jo said.

"You asking because that girl who was after him? She a friend of yours?"

So maybe she did ask around once in a while, but it was all purely professional. Because Drake was a hunter, old and grizzled, and if Jo wanted to know what a hot British art dealer might have wanted from him? Well. Curiosity was in her blood.

"What girl?" Jo asked.

He nodded. "Stranger. Bout your age and height, kind of suspicious. Word gets around."

"I don't know her at all," she said.

Jo resumed staring into the middle distance as she waited for the coffee to boil, wondering if death by boredom actually existed. In these trying circumstances, it was only natural she would wonder about Bela, in between daydreaming phantom breaths of wind in her hair and imagining the cornfields burning out behind her as she always did, driving a little too fast into town to pick up weekly meat orders, burning rubber like at any moment she might make her big escape. 

"Why'd you want to find her then," Jackson asked as she put down a fresh cup of coffee in front of him. 

She touched her neck where the locket had been. "She took something from me, and I want it back." 

"Uh huh," said Jackson, and looked back down at his drink.

Jo ignored the stirrings of some great calling that probably meant she should take off her apron right now, leave the dishes in the sink, and hit the road and be anywhere _but_ Nebraska. 

 

 

 

 

 

Late one evening, when the customers had all gone home and a symphony of cicadas was singing in the long grass by the door, the bar phone rang. Jo had been enjoying the warmth of the night seeping into her bones as the occasional car drove by on the highway and listening to the nighttime creaking of the Roadhouse settling above her.

She didn't have any illusions about setting off on her own, didn't expect she'd be some shiny penny when it came down to things, but she had to at least give herself the chance. She thought about this great escape as she filled the pepper.

She knew that when she'd save lives no one would thank her for it. She'd have to behead things that were already dead, gag because she didn't have a good stomach for blood. Every creepy crawly thing she chased after would be better left alone, and she imagined the horror of it all would hit her square in the chest, like the kick of a rifle. 

But she'd keep her head down and keep fighting. Wasn't that what doing the right thing was all about? Knowing your path and setting out on it, even when the path was unmarked, the beds hard or nonexistent? It would be tornado warnings on her radar but the belief in clear skies for someone else. And she'd do it, sooner rather than later, of that much she was sure. 

She'd finished cleaning now, and picked up the receiver distractedly as she refilled the last napkin holder for the night. "Sorry, we're closed."

"Rude," said a voice over the line. "It's very early morning here, I'll have you know."

It sent a shiver of recognition up her neck. She put down the napkins and cradled the phone against her shoulder.

"Very early, huh? Where are you?"

Bela's voice was clear, like she was seated at the bar that very moment, idly sipping a beer. They'd only ever met once but Jo remembered her. And Bela, apparently, remembered her too.

"I'm in Portugal," Bela told her. "I thought I'd find you behind the bar."

"Never anywhere else." It sounded more bitter than Jo had meant it to. She moved on, frowning. "Why are you calling here, anyway? You know you're a wanted criminal around these parts."

"How's that?"

"A robbery occurred, about a month ago now, and the vanished goods were never found. A gold locket? Shaped like a heart? Ring any bells?"

"Oh, right," Bela said. "It's the one with a picture of Johnny Depp in it. I have it here with me."

Jo rolled her eyes, even though she was alone with the lights burning low. "Yep, that's the one."

"You should be flattered."

"Why?"

"Well, isn't it nice to think that someone's carrying a part of you with them? It shows they're thinking of you."

Jo felt a warmth creep up her neck. "You can talk your way out of anything, can't you."

"I'm very gifted."

Jo caught herself smiling into the phone, and too late realized she should be angry. They weren't friends. Schoolyard enemies more like. "What do you want, anyway?"

"I wanted to thank you for the intel on Mr. Drake."

"Did he sell you what you were looking for?"

Bela didn't exactly answer. "You've provided more help than you realize," she said instead. "In fact, I'd be dead if it weren't for you."

"Some art trader," Jo laughed. "You usually get into trouble?"

"Something like that. In repayment I wanted to warn you— there's a guy I've been dealing with, a nasty piece of work. His name is—" Jo frowned as Bela hesitated. "Actually, his name isn't important. Just be careful, all right? Mind who you hand out pints to."

"I will," said Jo, slowly, waiting for something more, some explanation. 

"Goodnight, Jo."

The line went dead. Jo felt certain now that it would be the last time.

 

 

 

 

 

A month later, and Jo was in what her momma called a funk and Ash had dubbed a cybernetic crisis. Something about disconnect in a technological age.

Whatever the reason, it was the tail end of summer and she was bored as hell and itching to do something with her life. There was a time when Jo could've called her old friend Lindsey and begged her way over to hang out by their pool. But that friendship had ended almost five years ago, before Jo had stopped returning her calls and Lindsey hadn't pushed it. It had gotten tiring, pretending to be something she wasn't, and last Jo'd heard Lindsey was moving to California to be a doctor or something. 

Sooner or later, Jo thought as she stirred ice into a pitcher of fresh lemonade in the perpetual cool of the bar. Sooner rather than later, she was going to head out on her own and feel useful again. Compared to now, that life would feel like freedom, hope, and the American way. She'd kick ass and take names. She'd fall in love. She'd probably die out there. 

"I'm going on break," she told her momma, throwing in the towel literally if not almost figuratively, and let her hair down from its quick ponytail.

Her mom handed her a plate of fries and a basket of chicken tenders in response. "Can you take these out to the two guys by the pool table first?" 

Jo frowned. Her stomach growled at the thought of some fries and her momma raised an eyebrow like she was about to scold Jo for skipping breakfast.

Before Ellen could say anything on the subject, Jo smiled sweetly and pushed the door open, basket in hand. "Sure thing."

At the pool table, the men tipped her in grubby one-dollar bills that she folded into her back pocket to later smooth out between the pages of an old bible, the only place she was sure no one here would touch.

She disappeared out back to hurl sharp and deadly _shuriken_ into fence posts to burn off some steam, a small voice whispering _anywhere but here_.

Hot flies settled on walls that afternoon and stayed there, white buckwheat flowers stood still on their stalks. After she'd gotten sick of flinging ninja stars every which way, Jo spent the better part of an hour shooting tin cans off a fence post out back, imagining the next time anyone, demon possessed or no, tied her up to a post or attacked her — what she'd do to them, how she'd be ready — until there was more hole than soupcan left. 

The calm Jo felt as she sighted each target just before the bullet echoed into the great emptiness was somehow the most relaxing thing she'd ever known. She was zen. She was in the zone. She—

When a cold hand grabbed her from behind, she screeched and swung around ready to kick her attacker in the face.

Ash ducked with the alacrity of one who often pissed off people with dangerous reflexes. He held up a hand. "Calm your balls, Jo. I'm just messing with ya."

"I swear to god, Ash, if you were anyone else—" She didn't finish that sentence. With effort, she relaxed her stance.

The dust settled around them, and Ash held out a square of paper to her. "This came for you," he said, squinting in the light of the sun which hung at half-mast.

"Came for me?" She took it out of his hand. It was an article that had been cut neatly from a newspaper, a few paragraphs long.

Ash said, "Didn't know you had any friends, Jo."

"Neither did I."

"Yeah, no return address on the envelope."

"You opened my mail," she pointed out, but had already begun reading.

"Ideas on who it's from?"

She shook her head. "I don't know _who_ , but I can guess _why_. Listen to this." She read out a line from the article, under the picture of an ominous and decrepit house. "Third death in the Old Dewitt house— reports of mysterious noises, dead tenants, furniture moving on its own accord—" She looked up, couldn't help the grin on her face. "Ash. It's a haunted house, in Arkansas. This is a case!"

He mirrored her grin. "You put out a Craigslist ad or something?"

She ignored him. "Do you think it's from Dean? I mean, he saw how badass I was when he and Sam crashed my hunt. Maybe they need backup?"

"Maybe. You think this is his style?" Ash looked as intrigued as Jo was. "What're you going to do?"

Jo looked at the paper in her hand, and then over to her beat up car where it sat rusting along the side of the house. "Well I gotta go, don't I?"

Ash screwed up his mouth and looked in the distance, and for a second Jo thought he was going to tell her it was a bad idea, maybe tell her to talk to her mom who scared the hell out of everyone, even Ash who was pretty much Ellen's second kid. Part of Jo maybe wanted him to say something like that, some scared part of her that was still hesitant about striking out on her own.

She felt dumb a second later for even doubting him, though, when all Ash did was nod once, like it was decided then. "I can get the downlow on this creepy house while you pack. You're gonna need some supplies."

He stumbled back against the side of the building when Jo lunged at him to give him the biggest of hugs.

"You know I got your back," he said, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.

She squeezed her eyes tight. "Thanks, Ash."

That night, feeling like she was sixteen again and sneaking out to drink forties with the girls from her homeschool math group and kick pebbles into the road, Jo waited until the light had long gone out under her momma's door before sneaking down the stairs. She avoided every creaky step, sprinted through past the bar, and disappeared through the front door. 

She was out of there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The map Jo relied on was ripped down the middle, but both halves pointed her clear across two states, and from that point, Ash's directions led her to the Old Dewitt House with no wrong turns. 

It was better to work alone, she found. No one showed up this time, not like that first solo-hunt-gone-wrong, the Winchesters crashing her party but ultimately saving the day. She'd been trying to shake it off for some time now. 

This time she didn't end up underground in a would-be coffin, breathing dank air and decay. It was an easy in-and-out sort of job, and she was more thankful for that than she'd care to admit.

The house was haunted down to its very foundation and owned by a family of people heavily into the occult. Jo was greeted by a young lady in dark eyeliner and a pentagon necklace hanging over her tanktop, and was ushered in to meet the rest of the family. Jo wiped her shoes politely on the Ouija board door mat, noting how all the surfaces were covered in candles and crystal balls.

"We had in mind to rent out the attic room," Mrs. Dewitt explained, shaking her head. "But the ghost of my great-grandmammy wouldn't have it. Killed three college students before we realized what was happening."

Jo had been ready to sneak and deceive, but she found she didn't have to. 

"We're believers," Mrs. Dewitt told her, and was happy to direct Jo to her great-grandmother's grave in a cemetery in the center of town. She even packed Jo a sack lunch for her trouble. It was peanut butter and jelly, Jo was pleased to find. She ate it graveside like she was on a lovely picnic with the dearly departed.

The cemetery was lined by weeping willow trees, the ground wet with recent rainstorms, and Jo dug the grave for hours.

"Piece of cake," she muttered somewhat sardonically as she finally cracked the coffin top that was rotted and thin. She held a match steady till the flame stopped flickering, then dropped it into the sodden pile of bones and earth. She watched as the body burned, the old woman's bones crackling. Eventually everything smoked down to ash.

Jo refilled the grave, on the adrenaline high of a lifetime, scooping shovel-fulls of dirt like she hadn't spent the last three hours digging it up, like her arms weren't burning with the effort, like she'd slept at all that past night instead of driving straight on through.

When Jo headed back to the old house that was now spirit-free, Mr. Dewitt was so thankful he shoved forty bucks in her pocket and wouldn't take no for an answer. 

"Old bag gave me the creeps," he swore. "Besides it's awkward to hear your wife's dead great-grandma roaming the halls when you're trying to do you-know-what—"

"Dad!" the daughter cut in, horrified.

"Ok, I should be going," Jo said. "Let me know if the problem starts up again."

"Have a good day," Mrs. Dewitt called after her.

Jo felt warmed by the kindness of strangers, only to remember she was the one sweeping in to the rescue. She felt a strange sense of pride at this as she tried not to skip down the path to her car. She felt on top of the world, having proven herself in the arts of manual labor and civilian-saving. There was nothing like the rush of knowing you'd saved a handful of innocents from quick, brutal death-by-spirit. 

She sang loudly along with Taylor Swift on the radio on the drive over to a mall that sparkled in the evening light, and even winked at the dude at the arcade-side Jack 'n the Box counter when she came up to order.

"I get off in an hour," he told her.

"I've actually got a date," she said, apology thick behind her smile.

The guy took it in stride. "No problem. Milkshake's on me, though."

Jo did have a date. A date with every arcade game that required use of a firearm.

She ate her hamburger quickly, and then got change for one of her two twenties and made her way out onto the floor with both pockets loaded down with quarters.

"Thank you, Mr. Dewitt," she said, quarter poised over the coin slot. Which was when she caught sight of a familiar figure near the air hockey table. She stared. " _Seriously_?"

Her pulse went erratic. She was exhausted and high strung with electricity of success, and also completely thrown by Bela's sudden presence out here in the real world.

Bela looked entirely different, wearing a purple party dress and black heels, curls bouncing as she squealed and came toward Jo.

"What?" Jo said as Bela kissed her cheek. 

Bela curled her arms around Jo for a brief, impersonal hug. "There you are, silly! I was wondering where you'd gone."

Jo was stunned, but she wasn't stupid. Bela squeezed her arm warningly and Jo knew how to play along. 

She said in a loud voice, "I was, uh, getting change for the video games." 

Bela winked, almost imperceptibly, and then dragged Jo over toward a group of kids their age. "Jo, these are my new friends," she said.

Jo gave a little wave. "Hey, guys."

A tall guy stuck out a hand. "Mark. Nice to meet you," He gestured behind him, "And this is Jack and Simone."

Simone looked Jo over and turned to Bela. "Becky! I didn't know you had a friend here!"

"Jo doesn't live here," _Becky_ said, then whispered like it was a secret, "She's from the midwest."

"Yeah, she's right," Jo said awkwardly, shrugging when they stared at her waiting for her to say something that made her interesting enough to be friends with...Becky.

Jo had wasted a ghost just three hours earlier and she'd been planning to celebrate by herself. It should have been a night out at the crappy mall, and Jo passed out on her motel bed by eleven. But instead here she was, suddenly swept up in Bela's orbit, infringing on an area of Bela's life that had nothing to do with her. Jo could save lives but she couldn't even hold a halfway decent conversation with someone her age, this was proven over the next few minutes. She tended to stop conversations and then feel awkward and too small for her skin. 

They all began to talk to each other, and Jo faded into the background. Bela looked good, she noticed, better than ever in the neons of the arcade. Seeing her here now felt inexplicably like running into an ex in some incongruous location, and the feeling got worse as Bela barely looked her way.

"You come here often?" Mark finally asked Jo, nodding to the Jurassic Park game Jo had had her heart set on playing.

"Yeah, totally," Jo said in her best valley girl impression, then grimacing at the sound.

"You know," Mark said. He stretched casually and surveyed the arcade like it was his kingdom. "I'm kind of a big deal when it comes to this kind of thing."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I have the top score on pretty much all these games. Unbeatable."

"Really."

Jo looked to Bela, whose smile was impersonal and distant, and to the other two, who were deep in conversation again, and then back to Mark waiting for her answer.

Jo couldn't resist a challenge and, judging by Mark's designer jeans and douchey haircut, he had money to spare. Jo wondering vaguely if Bela would be pissed at her for ripping off one of her preppy friends. Hell, she hadn't even known Bela had friends in the US. Not that she knew anything about her, really. 

"Stand to lose a little money on it?" Jo said.

Mark blinked, reassessing the situation. "You're serious? Well sorry, I don't bet less than a grand."

Bela giggled at something Jack had said, and Jo looked away for a second, feeling an unexpected twinge of something like jealousy.

"Make it two," she said. She grabbed a neon, plastic gun. "I could use a new laptop."

 

 

 

The night didn't sour after she curled her winnings into her pocket. Sixty bills, all of them hundreds. Mark was a good sport about it, just rolled his shoulders after she won their third round, and shook her hand.

"I concede," he said.

Bela batted her eyelashes and shot Jo a dangerous look. "Please excuse her. Nothing to do in those middle states but drink and gamble."

"Nonsense, I'm a lady!" Jo protested, and kept her eyes on Bela as the rest of the group laughed.

Bela dragging her toward the bathrooms, slamming the door behind them.

She looked cool and intrigued when she pressed Jo up against the bathroom door. "Is that mud on your top?" she said. 

Jo looked down at herself as well. "Ah. So it is. I—" _just dug myself into and out of a grave_. "—was in a field. So yeah, it is. Mud." Jo quickly moved on. "Look, sorry to crash your party. You can say I got sick and went home."

"Don't be."

"I honestly didn't know you'd be here. Imagine my surprise when of all the places—"

Bela cut her off, shaking her head. "I thought you might be in the area."

"Thought I was in the— wait, what?"

Bela let her go, pushing her gently toward the sinks. "Clean yourself up. We'll go home with Mark."

"What?"

"These kids have something I need," Bela said. Then, like she'd only just remembered to consider it, "You don't have plans tonight, do you?"

"Well..."

"I could use your expertise."

Jo relaxed. "Oh, so you need backup?" 

"Never in a million years."

"Uh huh. And hey, how could I possibly help you with an art job?"

She couldn't help but notice Bela's tendency not to answer direct questions. As Bela looked her over again, Jo felt her cheeks burn. 

"You have a nice pair of heels or something?" Bela asked.

" _I_ would never in a million years wear heels—" Jo retorted, and was about to finish with _on a hunt_ , imagining wearing stilettos in a fight with something that wanted to eat her alive. She couldn't very well say that though, and instead just let that half-finished protest hang there awkwardly.

"Yes, well," Bela said. "Our lives differ from each other in quite a few places, wouldn't you say?"

Jo put a hand over her heart. "Ouch, you really know how to make a girl cry."

"Whatever," said Bela, and stepped away to leave the bathroom. 

Before following her out, Jo gave herself a quick, furtive look in the mirror, wetting a paper towel to wipe dried mud off the side of her neck. 

Mud removed, she looked good.

When they rejoined Mark and the others, Bela took Jo's arm and Jo got the feeling it was not only to keep up BFF appearances, but that she was making sure she stayed.

"We're going back to mine for some drinks, maybe a little dip in the hot tub," Mark told them, implication heavy, and Jo fought the urge to roll her eyes.

Bela punched her in the arm, but in a friendly sort of way. Maybe. Jo couldn't really tell.

"That sounds great! We'll meet you there. I'll ride with Jo!"

"Bye," Jo sing-songed, wiggling her fingers.

Bela dragged her away, dropping the act seamlessly. "Now there's a good girl," she said.

"Your American accent sucks," Jo told her acidly.

"It's almost like you're not happy to see me."

Jo laughed as they stepped outside onto the sidewalk. Bela sidestepped a puddle as a taxi skidded past. Steam came up from the sewers in puffs.

"I still have no idea what I'm doing here," Jo told her, looking to where her three new friends were unlocking a red convertible down the road. "None."

"Oh come on. Don't overthink it. It'll be fun."

"What will? Spending all night hanging with spoiled rich kids who've probably never done an honest day's work in their lives." Jo paused, laying on the fake surprise extra thick. "Oh wait, I see why you're friends now." 

"As I said, this is purely a business matter. I'm here because I have a potential seller," Bela said slowly, like maybe Jo was stupid.

Jo fished in her pocket for the keys as they reached her car. Compared to the convertible, it looked downright dangerous to drive. She wasn't embarrassed of where she was from, but it could do with a tune up. "Yeah? Who?"

"You just met him."

Jo paused with her key in the lock, looking down the street. "That kid?"

"That _kid_ ," Bela said. "Is the son of millionaire Janna Lynch, who just so happens to have in her collection of precious artifacts, a dagger that is said to have belonged to a Greek god."

"Bullshit."

"Obviously." Bela rolled her eyes at Jo over the top of the car. "But it doesn't mean it's not pretty. And I have a buyer who'll pay a handsome sum."

"Why the fake persona then?"

Bela did a fake curtsey in her frilly dress. "I'd rather stay off the radar. I'm sure you understand."

Jo squinted at her, wondering at the edge to that. Bela just looked back, as if daring her to respond.

"Fine," Jo said, giving in more out of curiosity than common sense. She wanted to see where this would go. Inexplicably wanted to know Bela.

Bela smiled before getting in on the passenger side. It was probably not the best sign. Jo started the car with jerky, barely contained resignation and followed the cherry-colored Jag down the dark street. 

Bela was rooting around in her glove compartment, and when Jo glanced over again, saw that she had moved on to looking over into the backseat, eyeing the shovel. "Are you a gardener? It would explain the dirt."

"Yep, that's me," Jo said, the muttered, " _Civilians_."

"Pardon?"

"Nothing. Hey, so if this kid's mom's a purveyor of precious artifacts and has a car like that, what was he doing hanging out at the mall? I guess this is almost the definition of a two horse town, but still. There has to be _something_ better to do around here."

Bela settled back in her seat. "His daddy bought him that mall. Try not to fuck this up, ok?"

"Right."


	2. Chapter 2

Jo might be out of her comfort zone, but if there was one thing she knew, it was drinks. 

They shot pool in the lower level of Mark's giant mansion, sipping martinis like spies. Jo offered to pour so she could peruse Mark's mother's liquor selection, and found that the bar was, unsurprisingly, fully stocked. Simone begged her to teach her how to mix drinks. 

"So this is how the other half live," Jo said, giving her a severe look as Simone speared olives for their drinks inexpertly.

Jo flipped the gin bottle twice and poured without measuring, grinning as Mark whistled appreciatively from across the room.

When she'd made the drinks, she slid glasses over to Jack who delivered them, clinking his against Bela's. They linking their arms between them and drank like they were two undercover agents who'd fallen in love and lived the classy life. 

When Jack turned away, Bela sent Jo a look that said, _just play along for now_ and Jo fixed herself another. She wondered again what she was doing there but was having a great time. 

Mark sidled up to the bar with two cue sticks, interrupting Jo's thoughts. "So, how's your pool?" he asked.

"I'm alright," she said.

"If you're as good as you are with a gun, I'm in trouble."

"She's better," Bela called over.

Mark laughed, and Jo was going to say that he should see her with a _real_ gun, not a plastic one, but then the pool balls rolled out onto the table and she just shook her head. "Are you shitting me?" 

The cue ball was made of crystal, the curve of the numbers stamped on in gold. The rest of the balls were made of stone of various deep colors, and shone in the light.

"My dad's kind of a dick," Mark explained apologetically, for the first time sounding somewhat aware of his circumstances.

"I've seen your car," Jo countered.

Mark shrugged, but looked pleased. 

"I so do not feel bad beating your ass," Jo told him and found that, strangely, her laughter wasn't even forced. She shared a brief glance with Bela then turned and took a stick. "Your break."

 

 

 

 

Jo and Mark weren't evenly matched at pool, not at all. In the end, he said, "Get outta here" and started up a game with Jack. 

Jo almost felt bad for him. 

She snagged the bottle of tequila as she passed the bar, and some lime wedges, and sat near Bela. The sofa was the nicest Jo had ever sat on. She felt like she could curl up right there and sleep for a year.

"Would you like another drink?" she offered.

Bela's lips quirked. "Trying to get me talkative, are you?"

"Something like that," Jo said. 

Bela looked even more inviting after a couple drinks, and her mouth was very pretty. Pity the accusations that came out of it, though. 

Jo sighed. "At least have the decency to start spilling your secrets; I'm not here for my health, you know."

Bela's eyes widened. "Oh, sorry. You seem to be laboring under false assumptions. I'll never let my guard down, I'm a master of secrecy."

Jo shook her head. "You talk a big game." She fixed up a shot for Bela, handing it over as an excuse to sit closer. Their fingers slid together on the cool glass, and Jo said, eyes never leaving Bela's, "Watch out, I'm a master of interrogation."

"That good, are you?" Bela said, raising the shot glass to her lips.

"Mm."

"I don't believe you."

"Can't blame a girl for trying." She curled her legs up under herself on the cushion, shoes off, and leaned against the back of the couch. She was sore from digging, hands rough. She got the feeling Bela didn't mind her jeans, though, or the smell of lighter fluid that was still evident on her fingers.

"I've always dreamed of being rich and the best in my field," Bela said suddenly, just audible over the shrieking of laughter by the pool table. When Jo smiled, Bela slapped a hand over her mouth in mock horror. "Oh goodness, is this what it's like to be so brutally honest? This strange compulsion?"

"For the first time in your life." Jo said uncharitably, but her eyes stayed trained on Bela even though Mark was trying to juggle a few margarita limes across the bar and Simone was doing a shirtless handstand on the pool table in her green bra. 

Bela said, "You really do have a gift."

"Try harder," Jo told her. "My reputation rests on this moment."

Bela leaned towards her on the couch, eyes bright as she looked up through her lashes. Jo took a fortifying shot of tequila, licking salt from her hand and wondering what Bela would tell her.

"My middle name really is Becky," Bela confessed. "Oops, that's something I've never divulged to anyone. I must be quite inebriated." She smirked at Jo.

"Shut up," Jo said, trying yet failing to bite back a smile. 

"Jo?" said Bela, lightly.

"Mm?"

Bela touched her arm. "Jo, I'll be honest with you. My favorite color is purple, and I've never owned a CD in my life." She sounded at once contrite and earnest as she continued. "I think American chocolate is horrible and I rarely use the internet for anything other than business. That's why I haven't answered your friend request."

Jo finally laughed in spite of herself. "Stop making fun of me. I don't even have Facebook."

Bela took another sip of her drink, and then put the glass behind her. She pushed a hand up Jo's leg, knee to thigh, and Jo's breath caught at the feeling of Bela leaning in to say into her cheek, "I plan to become the youngest self-made billionaire the world has ever seen, and I'm doing rather well at it so far if I do say so myself. And yet, despite all that, the best money I think I've ever spent was two hundred dollars on gas from the Chicago airport to a roadside bar called The Roadhouse, in the middle of bloody nowhere, Nebraska."

"Aw, that's so sweet," Jo said, but her smile was real. Bela rolled her eyes and ducked away when Jo tried to pat her cheek, visibly embarrassed for the first time since Jo had met her. Her admission seemed like an apology of sorts, and Jo felt strangely touched.

"Hot tub!" Jack yelled, and hung over the couch between them. "You girls ready for this?"

"Give us five minutes," Bela said, smiling sweetly at him. "You go ahead."

"Clothing optional," Mark reminded them. 

"Put your money where your mouth is," Jo shouted after him, and then, when they'd all left the room, "What a dick." 

She hadn't even felt Bela move off the couch, but when she looked, Bela was at the door that led to the rest of the house, giving her an impatient look.

Jo frowned, getting up to follow. 

"What are we—"

"We have about ten minutes, I think," Bela called behind her, her loud whisper echoing in the foyer beyond. 

It was a cavernous space, and blue in the darkness, all the lights off and moonlight coming in high windows to reflect off marble floors and the sweeping bannister.

Bela made a beeline to the staircase and Jo started up after her.

"Why are we..." But Jo didn't finish the question. She saw suddenly what she'd known all along, what she hadn't wanted to let herself fully realize.

"Do they keep the dagger up there?" she said, already knowing the answer.

Bela was far ahead. "As long as my information is correct, yes."

So Bela was a thief. The moment Jo thought it, she knew it was true.

Jo followed at a distance as Bela stalked along the upstairs hall like a cat, eyes flicking to each door they passed and stepping quietly, quickly, with utmost precision. She seemed suddenly dangerous, sly words and a lovely face only completing the picture.

Jo knew now. The next question was what Jo was going to do about it.

"Hurry up," Bela said.

Self-preservation would have to win out for the time being. Jo would get them in and out and then deal with this issue in the light of day.

Jo paused by a door.

"This way," she said, and turned the knob. When Bela gave her an incredulous look, Jo said, "What? I don't want to be stuck in here when they come looking for us. Let's get this done with as fast as possible."

Bela shook her head and pushed into the room. When she saw what was inside, she smiled. "Well done, Harvelle."

Jo shook her head. "The study is _always_ where the secret stash is," she told her, suddenly annoyed once more at Bela's condescending surprise that Jo couldn't possibly have something valuable to add. "You might be good at this whole cat burglar thing, but you walked right past a room that literally says 'study' on it. I'll do the leading from now on, ok?"

"Hey—" Bela began, but Jo cut her off, deciding that the somewhat romantic moment had broken already so she might as well go for broke.

"Speaking of missing the boat," she said. "You say the best money you ever spent was two hundred dollars on gas from Chicago to Nebraska? How lost did you _get_? Jesus, were you driving in circles? That should have been fifty dollars, tops."

"Thank you," Bela said after a lengthy pause. "For the character assessment. Can I go inside now or do you have any more constructive criticism to share with me?"

Jo pushed in past her, muttering, "Let me go in first, you might get lost on the way to the knife."

She heard Bela scoff behind her, but ignored her, already casing the study. 

An ostentatious desk was in the center of the room, a laptop on it but not much else. The bookshelves were loaded with hardcover books on one side but other shelves held what looked, by the beam of Bela's small flashlight, to be artifacts. On close examination of a set of golden goblets, Jo could make out etching in some language or runes she didn't recognize, and diamond earrings appeared to be glowing a preternatural blue. 

"A jawbone," Bela said under her breath, examining, well, just that, on the third shelf. "I wonder whose—?"

Jo had the feeling something bad was going to happen if they didn't leave soon, like they were sure to trip a wire, or Mark would come see what she and Bela were doing — two girls he'd met at an arcade, wandering the upstairs of his mother's house, touching the jewelry and eyeballing the fine china. Jo wasn't exactly used to sneaking around, was more versed in brute force, so all this silent examination had her on edge. Three minutes had already passed since they'd come upstairs and the clock was still ticking. 

Bela swung her light around, and the beam glinted off of what appeared to be sapphires, bulging along the handle of a knife, set upright on a wooden display stand in one corner of the room. From the looks of it, it was ancient, and Jo had no doubt in her mind that this was the dagger they'd come for.

Bela considered the display from all sides, waving her hand in the general vicinity. When nothing happened and no traps seemed to have been lain, she reached towards the hilt. 

Jo cringed, watching through one eye and barely daring to look. But Bela lifted the dagger from its stand and slipped it into her dress with no extra fanfare. Jo let out a harsh breath when no flashing lights flooding the room, nothing seemed to have changed save the now-empty display.

When nothing continued to happen, she stepped in close at Bela's side. "Now please can we go? As in, very soon?"

"I'm not opposed to the idea," Bela said, but her voice was distracted and instead of leaving the room, she crossed it to peer in through a second door which she pushed open with the back of her hand. Jo wondered whether American police had Bela's fingerprints on file.

"But shouldn't we look into the rest of Mrs. Lynch's collection? That is why we're here, after all." She glanced into a vase on a table.

"No!" Jo said. "Bela, we got what we came for. Now we have to go. And before you ask, the answer is yes, you're leaving with me."

Bela acknowledged her finally, frowning and advancing on Jo. "Is there somewhere else you need to be? Because I'm not forcing you to stay."

There was an edge to Bela's voice that Jo didn't like. "So what," she said. "You're just going to steal a bunch of shit, get your money, and then take off? On to the next job?"

"Maybe," Bela said, stepping forward again. When Jo took a step back in kind, she reached out a hand. "Watch out!"

It was already too late.

Jo's elbow knocked a ceramic bowl from a display table, and in her mind's eye she saw what would happen next — china shattering, alarms blaring, an unfortunate scuffle with the local law enforcement.

None of that happened however. She caught the bowl on reflex, an inch before it hit the ground, fingers pinched tight around the edge.   
"Jo," Bela said after they'd both exhaled in relief. "Let's clear things up, shall we?"

Jo replaced the bowl to its pedestal.

"I know what you are."

"No you don't," Jo said, then shut up. If she'd had any siblings she'd be better at lying, probably, quicker on her feet.

"The way you caught that bowl. Explain that."

"I did karate for a long time—" Jo tried.

Bela put her hands behind her back, pacing for a moment. "I know more than you obviously give me credit for, which I'll admit is flattering. It's something of a testament to my skill that I can pull one over on someone like you."

"I don't know what you—"

She was still cursing herself for giving the game away when Bela flung the knife at her.

Jo ducked on instinct, then wheeled around to see that the dagger was embedded in the wall behind her, just inches from where her head had been a moment before. It stuck there, quivering. 

Jo moved quickly, grabbing Bela by the arm and swinging her around and up against the same wall. "That could have killed me! And if that dagger's so valuable, why'd you throw it at my face!"

"You ducked," Bela pointed out. "A dagger flying through the air. Tell me that's something your everyday waitress can do and I'll believe you."

"What is it you think you know about me?"

She watched up close as Bela's mouth curled into a Cheshire cat grin, as she said, "You're a hunter."

"What?" Jo squeaked.

There was a long, dark silence, the only light dull from behind the curtain. She could feel Bela's pulse hot under her hands.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Bela said, and somehow it didn't seem like a threat.

"Are you in the business, then?" Jo asked, letting her question be enough of an admission. 

"Do I seem like a hunter to you?" 

She didn't, but she was definitely something. By the disdain in Bela's voice, Jo could imagine the cool look she was giving her in the dark. 

"Well you're definitely not a civilian," Jo said. "Are you undercover? On the run? An international criminal?"

"I told you, I'm a trader of sorts," Bela told her. But when Jo gave her an unimpressed look, Bela conceded, "I buy and sell magical items for a select clientele."

It was hard to tamp down on the tentative excitement, that Bela was someone who she could be on the level with, that there was finally someone else. It felt the same as when she'd met Dean and Sam Winchester a year ago, when suddenly having friends her age had become a possibility. She lived in a world of dried blood, of guns and midnight graves, and it turned out Bela was a part of that.

"Magic," Jo repeated. The word tasted dusty on her tongue. 

Bela inclined her head.

"So you move around a lot?" Jo said.

"I do a lot of international travel, yes. Is this really what you're interested in?"

Jo ignored her. "Dangerous?"

Bela tested Jo's grip, pulling at her hands until Jo's fingers tightened. "People try to blackmail me," Bela confirmed.

"And?"

"And so I blackmail them instead."

"Right."

Jo had no right to judge of course. She hadn't been in the field much herself, true, but she was borderline ruthless. Just last week she'd won five hundred bucks at the pinball machine off a guy she knew had just come back from a failed hunt. She hadn't gone easy on him, either.

"Glamorous," she said. 

Bela let out a quiet laugh in the dark. "Hardly. Imagine trying to stay presentable when you've got to buy new straighteners everywhere you go. I always forget my power converter."

Jo laughed. She couldn't imagine.

"Half the time I'm on the run from the authorities," Bela continued, tone mild. Her closeness was intoxicating. "I'm wanted by the Italian police."

If it were anyone else dropping that detail into conversation, Jo would refuse to bite, but coming from Bela it somehow didn't seem like bragging. "Oh, why's that?"

"I was arrested in Rome once and managed to talk my way out of handcuffs. I managed to escape and then hopped on the next train out of the country." 

"But couldn't you have just paid the fine? Seeing as you're in the lucrative business of extortion."

Bela shrugged, the warm brush of her shoulder next to Jo's. "It's true, I was offered a pardon for a small fee, but I'm not the type of girl who likes to concede."

"I see." Jo couldn't decide if Bela was a pathological liar, or really was that adventurous, living a life that sounded far-flung and expensive. She imagined Bela in dark sunglasses disappearing into a crowd in an Italian piazza and decided it was probable she'd end up with an inferiority complex. That is, if Jo herself wasn't in the business of saving the world. 

"And recently I became acquainted with an adorable pair of hunters. Brothers in fact. They currently want my head."

Bela gasped as Jo crowded her in further against the wall. The fabric of her dress bunched beneath the push of Jo's fingers, too-thin. 

"Sam and Dean?"

"Oh, do you know them?" Bela laughed

"I do," Jo said, her grip on Bela's shoulder was hard in case she tried to get away.

"They're alive, if that's what you're worried about." 

Jo didn't back off. "What'd you do to them?"

"What did _I_ do? More like what they did. They royally messed up a job I was working. They surrendered a large sum in lottery tickets, which helped take the edge off the financial loss at least. Needless to say, we're not exactly on good terms now, so I wouldn't mention it. Anyway, I left them alone after that." She put her mouth to Jo's ear. "I'm a lover, you see. Not a fighter."

"Let's get out of here," Jo whispered. "But first—"

She dipped in, and Bela went easy, slinging her arms around Jo's neck. She allowed Jo to press her against the shelves and kiss her slow, making a pleased sound when Jo smoothed a hand up her bare thigh, and didn't seem to mind that Jo was wearing yesterday's clothes or that her mouth tasted like tequila.

"There," Jo said, face hot as she pulled back a moment later. She fixed the dress strap where it had slid softly down Bela's shoulder then grabbed the dagger by the hilt to pull it from the wall.

It came free easily, and felt...powerful...in her hand. There was no other way to describe it really.

"You're right, it's time to go," Bela said. She trailed a finger along Jo's arm, and Jo gasped, looking to her once again, at that mouth she'd just touched to hers.

Bela then went to the window. "The stairs are too dangerous, we'll never get out that way. By now they're probably searching for us."

Jo realized belatedly that Bela had taken the dagger from her without her noticing. She was all tricks and sleights of hand, Jo shouldn't trust her.

Bela tossed a rope she had been hiding who knew where out the window and secured it to the radiator in a complicated knot. She tested the rope like she was planning to actually go through with it. 

Suddenly, this all seemed like a very bad idea.

Bela had the hint of a smirk on her face when she said, "You coming?"

Jo came closer, noticing how Bela moved the dagger into her dress as Jo came within arm's distance. Jo's heart jumped into her throat when she glanced over the window ledge, down the length of the rope that dangled three storeys, and couldn't see the ground below.

"Yeah," she said, and wondered again how her night had been turned so thoroughly on its head. "Piece of cake."

Bela met her eyes, appraising her. "Heights? That's a new one." 

"I am _not_ afraid of heights."

Bela just clambered out the window, gloves on to protect her hands, and slid quietly down the rope, disappearing into the dark. Again Jo had the image of a cat in her mind's eye. A cat burglar.

When she didn't hear a crash below, Jo stepped up to the sill again. The rope was swinging, not taut with weight and she knew Bela had made it safely.

Her turn then. The room was eerily silent and she felt very guilty like this, alone in someone else's house now that she didn't have Bela as an excuse.

She had to escape, and quickly.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she'd wrapped her jacket sleeves around the rope and clambered backward out the window. The air was cold on the back of her neck, her fingers holding deadly tight to the rope, the only thing between her and a deadly drop. 

She took one deep breath before falling back into sitting position with her feet planted against the wall in front of her. 

She walked steadily down that way, not allowing herself to think about the precarious position she was in, teeth chattering with cold and nerves, making her way down the dark side of the house.

When her feet touched ground an eternity later, her hands were raw but not cut through thanks to her jacket. She landed in an ungainly collapse of weight and got shakily to her knees, instantly looking around for Bela.

Neither Bela nor the dagger were anywhere to be found. Not that Jo was surprised. At least she had a getaway car.

The sound of screeching tires, however, disabused her of that plan. Her hand flew to her pocket for her keys, which were also missing. 

"Goddammit, Bela!" she growled, and then took off at a sprint.

 

 

 

Dean picked up on the sixth ring that night and Jo ignored the note of surprise in his voice.The call was long overdue. 

"Nice to hear you haven't gotten yourself killed yet," she said by way of hello.

"Nice to hear you've got some faith in my skills," he countered. "So, what's going on?"

Jo thought of the night she'd had, of the lighter fluid she had in her trunk and the iron crowbar she kept in the glove compartment just in case, the road map spread out across the passenger seat with a record of the three hundred miles in her rearview mirror. How Bela had stolen her car only to drop it at the edge of town, and it was lucky Jo had Ash to hack police reports to track it down for her. 

"Nothin'," she said. She pulled her beer to her on the scratched bar and leaned in on an elbow. "Well, I just finished a case. And stumbled over another one, maybe."

"Yeah?"

"You don't sound too surprised."

"Heard from your mom you're out on your own."

"She really called you?"

"Hell, I'm sure she called everyone." There was a sound of him taking a long drink. He was in a bar, too, from the sound of it. "Seems like just yesterday she had you on lockdown for the rest of your twenties."

"Yeah, no thanks to someone," Jo said, but softened it with a smile she thought he could hear. 

"Case go all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, it was fine. Restless spirit." She hesitated. Then, "Hey, Dean? I hear you've been making a friend of mine very happy." She saw Bela when she briefly closed her eyes. 

"Oh really?"

"You sound surprised."

"No, it's not every day I manage to make someone happy. I usually make someone dead, you know?"

"Don't sell yourself short."

"So, what's her name?"

"Wow, don't even remember their names? You do get around, don't you?"

He said, "I've got a lotta mileage, Jo."

"Does Bela Talbot ring any bells? You handed off some Lotto tickets?"

Jo grinned as Dean swore under his breath. He muttering Bela's name, followed by a sound of outrage that was presumably Sam. She traced a pattern in the splintery wood and kept smiling at nothing, listening to the argument that was too faint and muddled to hear. "Still there, Dean?"

"Yeah, Jo. Listen, sorry to ruin sleepovers for you—"

"We do not have sleepovers."

"—but Bela's no good."

Jo thought about the coy slide of dress strap down Bela's shoulder in the moonlight. "I don't know, Dean...she looked good to me."

There was a silence as Dean digested that one. 

"Even so," he said finally. "That girl messes with stuff that's bigger than her, without proper protection. It's just, after all we've been through, I don't wanna see you get involved with someone who doesn't have the best of intentions. I think of you like a sister, you know? Hell, Bela's not even her real name." He took an audible breath, like he was steeling himself. "Nearly got Sam killed."

"I'm sorry about that," Jo said, and she was, even though mention of Sam's name always brought to mind a time she'd been tied to a pole in the roadhouse. 

"Damn, Jo, I didn't mean to—"

"Water under the bridge," she said quickly. "I'll be careful. Thanks."

"Getting out on your own, it's good for you," he said, his voice all rusty. "But you ever send out an S.O.S., I'll be ready to save your green ass."

"You know what? Screw you, Dean. I'm fine on my own."

"Right back at you." 

He laughed, low and personal so that Jo wished there wasn't somewhere else Dean and Sam had to be all the time. She'd always felt this connection with him she suspected went both ways, that bond only hunter brats could share. She thought they could've been good friends if circumstances were different.

He didn't hang up then, and neither did Jo, and when he spoke again, his voice came out low with warning, like he was saying something though he knew she wouldn't listen. "I have a feeling this ain't gonna be the last time I say this, Jo, but I'd steer clear. That girl'll get you just where she wants you and convince you to hand her all the cash in your pocket."

"Yeah, yeah. Call me in a month and I'll tell you all about my broken heart."

"Looking forward to it. Oh, and Sam says 'hi.'"

She hung up on him, her heart lighter. And as for his warnings, Jo didn't think what he said would prove to be a problem. It's not like she knew where to find Bela, not like she had Bela's number. The country was big with little chance of their paths crossing.

Jo had all these big plans, a billion things to do. And if she did run into Bela again in the meantime? Well she could already tell, together they would have the world at their feet, easy. With Bela, it felt like the middle of things. It felt like deep lakes and high bridges. Like possibility.

Love crept in like a thief.


	3. Chapter 3

Jo kept on driving.

She kept her ear to the ground, heard about this other ghost in Illinois she had to take care of, and then a banshee in Minnesota. She stayed at barely decent motel rooms along the highway where the towels were threadbare and the hot water intermittent at best, and a couple weeks passed before she got up the nerve to send word home that she was alive and well.

She found herself traveling west then, further than she'd ever been. She'd always harbored secret dreams of seeing the Pacific Ocean.

And if she'd ever had any doubts about her ability to survive on her own, or to do good, she was cleanly knocking them down like cans from a fence. 

But she was broke, too, all her money spent on gas and gas station food, and maybe worse still. That was the thing about dreams. You could try so hard and want for so long, but when you got what you wanted, things were still hard. That was the big secret.

One morning in early September, Jo realized she was miles from home now and suddenly more lonely than she could ever recall, alone in diner full of strangers. She'd been slowly nursing the one cup of coffee for over an hour, and she could see that outside the diner window leaves had built up on her car windshield. Everything had changed but nothing, really. 

"But then, don't every time feel like the worst?" she caught from two booths over, a serendipitous conversation, only relevant by chance.

One lady was explaining to another, "That moment of pain is the most lucid you're ever gonna be, and no memory of something worse is ever going to convince you otherwise. You just gotta remember it's all in your head, that you gotta battle through it."

Jo listened a second longer, and of course they were talking about childbirth, not some existential loneliness that left Jo feeling green and pathetic.

She fished her phone from her backpack and hit dial, not sure what she wanted to say but needing the familiar voice.

"How's tricks?" she asked when Ash picked up. 

"Excellent," he said, not wasting time with smalltalk. "I made a…" She imagined him waving a hand, searching for the word. "A thing."

"A thing?"

"Yeah, something that let's me hack bandwidth so we don't have to pay for server space."

Jo smiled against the phone, feeling like he could be sitting across from her right now, dealing out cards. "For this hunter database you've been talking about, right?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"You really think old guys like Mitch or Larry'll make actual how-to videos?"

"Nah," Ash said. "Setting my expectations low. But anything that centralizes the community will help. Give it a couple years to take off."

"You're out to change the world," she accused him, not trying to keep the fondness from her voice.

Ash didn't miss a beat. "Careful, I might vomit in my french fries."

There was a muffled cheer from his end, probably a card game.

"Hey, so," Jo started. She wondered whether or not she should ask. For all her strengths, she'd never been able to leave well enough alone. She cleared her throat. "So, uh, did that Bela girl ever call again?"

Because yeah, she thought about Bela, more than she'd planned to. Not that she expected anything to come of it.

They'd stolen shit, they'd kissed, and it had been awesome. But it had been out of the context of real life, in some secret place. They'd probably never see each other again. Jo didn't dare hope. 

"Nah, sorry," Ash said. "Haven't heard anything."

"Right. Didn't think so."

Jo imagined Bela was probably somewhere international, maybe just up the way in Canada, on a dangerous job where communication wasn't her first priority. 

"You want me to check up on things?" Ash asked.

Jo shook her head vigorously. "No, of course not. I mean, there's nothing to find out, right?"

"Jo," he prompted.

"Well...there was this one thing that happened, but it was probably nothing—"

She found herself telling him about the undercover heist she'd aided and abetted in, leaving out a couple of the more salacious details but painting a good picture. 

When she was done, Ash whistled. "Damn, if that isn't a sweet mystery."

"Right?" She felt validated, like it wasn't stupid she'd been obsessing over it. 

"You think you could email me a description of this magical dagger?"

"Yeah, sure. What do you think it was, anyway? It was this really ... intense feeling." She remembered the weight of it on her palm when she'd held it for that brief moment, the blunt edge of the old blade.

"I'll ask a guy who knows someone who might be able to find something out for you," Ash said. "So yeah. I'll let you know."

 

 

 

 

 

 _Bingo_ , he texted her a week later, then sent her the address of a hunter bar in Colorado.

So now here Jo was in the fringes of Pueblo, waiting. There was a moose head on one wall and a rack of cracked pool sticks. The hanging lights guttered when trains passed by, the conversation too low to hear over the rattle, and an electric sign mounted behind the bar announced a two-dollar beer Jo ordered, and another the name of the establishment. 

"What brings you to Dirty Pete's?" a voice asked next to her, not creepy exactly, but not nice either.

"The decor," she deadpanned, hoping to god this wasn't the contact Ash had sent her. 

"Ooh, feisty," he said.

Jo turned to see he was a young guy, too sure of himself, cocky. "How about you go back to your friends and keep playing darts like a good boy," she said. Her hand was at her side, hovering there in case he tried anything.

"Right, right. Or..." the guy leaned in and she could smell old tobacco on his breath. "Or I buy you a drink and we'll talk about what a pretty girl like you's doing in a place like this."

Jo spun on her bar stool and flung her knife at the dartboard. It flew straight across the room and hit true, sinking to the hilt in the red dead center.

"I'll have to decline your kind offer," she said in a level tone. "I'm waiting for someone."

He put his hands up and took a step back. "Point taken. Uh. You have a nice night."

As he stumbled away, another beer slid across the counter toward Jo. 

"On the house," the bartender said. "Where'd you learn to throw like that?"

"Same place I learned to walk," she said. "A place in Nebraska. The Roadhouse?"

He gave a low whistle.

"You heard of it?"

"Heard of it?" he shook his head. "That's where my old man taught me to shoot tin cans from a hundred paces. It's where I snuck my first sip of whiskey." He raised a tumblr behind the bar. "Didn't like it much, but I kept at it."

Jo could imagine it.

"You Bill's kid?"

She nodded. If she could count on anything, it was that other hunters remembered her dad, even though Jo herself had only one blurry photograph and a handful of other people's stories.

"Well, any Harvelle is welcome here."

"Thanks." It meant more than she thought he realized.

She kept waiting. The open sky out the window was magenta and yellowed with evening. It was the time monsters came out, eerie and crepuscular. Jo's sneakers were covered in Arizona dust from yesterday's drive, and she was near deaf in one ear from the blast of a sawed-off on one shoulder.

Her contact entered then, a dark-skinned woman with short hair. Jo knew it was her from the way she cased the bar until her eyes landed on Jo.

Jo nodded and the woman made a beeline to her. 

"Tamara," the woman said, extending a hand.

"Jo," she replied, and shook.

Tamara ordered a strawberry daiquiri with no discernable shame, and raised an eyebrow when the barkeep refused to take her money. 

"On the house," he insisted, putting an umbrella in it.

"He knew my dad," Jo said when he'd left them to move down the bar. She found that telling this relative stranger made it less sad. She gave Tamara a real smile. "Thanks for coming. I hope it wasn't out of your way."

Jo didn't know if it was customary to pay someone in this situation. She really hoped not.

Tamara shook her head. "It's no trouble really. I was in the area." She winced as she sipped her drink, like maybe it was too strong. Jo was surprised to find that cute. "And besides, any friend of the Winchesters is a friend of mine. They saved my life."

Jo relaxed, feeling guilty but relieved. "Yeah, they saved mine, too."

Tamara pulled a binder from her bag. "So, I was able to gather information on the dagger you asked after. Not much, but some. It was previously owned by a Mrs. Lynch and reported stolen in August, just as you said." She flipped to a picture of an engraved silver blade. "The sapphire on the hilt is said to be filled with moonlight. And this knife isn't alone— it's a set of two. The second is recognizable by the ruby on its hilt, said to be filled with the blood of a virgin sacrifice."

"Gross," Jo said. "I'm assuming this second one belonged to Albert Drake?"

Tamara looked impressed. "Yes. The old man didn't report it missing to the police, but it's well known in hunter circles."

"So why would they be worth stealing? What's so special about them?"

"They're said to have been forged by a child of Zeus."

"Wait, hold up. As in Greek god, Zeus?"

"Yes."

"Bullshit."

"Of course it is. But while the myth around a powerful object may not be true, it doesn't mean the object is not powerful itself." Tamara flipped away from the photos and to a photocopy of a ripped page of an old book. "In myths, Hephaestus has a great forge, so it's assumed he's the child of Zeus the spell mentions. Now this here is the spell said to accompany the daggers," she pointed to a few lines on the page in script Jo didn't recognize. "Kill two virgins, the lore says, on the night of the new moon, and the knives will channel the power of the heavens so that you may carve a staircase into the cosmos and ascend."

Jo gulped. "Um...That's not possible. Is it?"

"I couldn't say. Although it doesn't seem as farfetched as it once did. Until a few months ago, I didn't believe in Hell." Tamara traced the script in the photo with a fingertip. "And now I'm having a hard time believing in Heaven."

Jo got the feeling Tamara didn't want to talk about it. "But...it's old magic, wherever it came from."

Tamara nodded. "That's right. It's old, ritualistic. And from what I've read, it can only be broken by sex magic."

" _Sex_ magic?"

She remembered someone else talking about magic once. Jo leaned back over the bar to get a closer look, and liked it when she noticed Tamara glance down her top. 

Tamara was a real sad type, sipping from her cocktail glass. She made Jo feel like hunting was noble again, the way she talked about but with a twisted edge. Revenge, Jo thought. She could spot it a mile away, mark of a true hunter. 

Tamara asked, "You been on the move long?"

The weeks had faded into each other. Jo'd spoken to her momma once in that whole time. There hadn't been much to say, but Jo had stayed on the line for a while because it felt the right thing to do. 

She had taken out a vamp and a deer girl, and lain five spirits to various states of rest with just a few gallons of lighter fluid, matches, and the small arsenal she'd amassed in the trunk. The more she looked for it, the more she found. "A while," she said.

She looked up through her eyelashes and ran a finger over the table grain.The British accent was the only drawback, made her feel like maybe she had some unresolved issues to work out, but she shoved it down.

She was embarrassed to find herself shifting in her seat, and had to bite her lip when she felt Tamara's hand slide up her thigh under the table. She uncrossed her legs to invite Tamara's hand to venture further.

"I've got a room," Tamara said, like it was any other thing.

"I've got a back seat," Jo countered.

"Utilitarian."

"Closer."  
Jo took another look at the dagger pictures and was suddenly reminded of Bela, and how keen she was to get her hands on it. The memory put her on edge.

"You said it affects everyone who comes into contact with it?"

"Anyone who's touched it. It's unsettling is what it is."

Jo frowned. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I gotta go."

"Oh?" Tamara paused. "Where do you have to go that's so important?"

"Home, strangely enough. I'm sorry," Jo said, and without thinking too much about it, ducked in and kissed Tamara's cheek. "Um. Thanks. Good luck."

She'd never blushed before, not like this. 

Tamara raised her glass, and Jo knew there were no hard feelings. "I know a girl on a mission when I see one. Get out of here."

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn't superstition, it was being smart. Jo told herself this as she turned homeward. She'd planned to hit up another town after this, find a case, but now she knew, she had to get home and talk to Ash. She had to somehow contact Bela and warn her against delivering the daggers to anyone who seemed like they might use them. She drove faster than she should.

When she arrived on a familiar road it was just gone four thirty AM, and she pulled into the Roadhouse lot as dawn began to paint the thick clouds on the horizon pink. She crept in through the back door and found Ash lain out on the couch in his lair of a room sleeping his way through a hangover.

Jo nudged him with the toe of her shoe, and when he didn't respond, she kicked him. She liked to imagine it was in a friendly way.

He stirred, brow furrowing in sleep. "Leave me alone," he muttered.

She was stupidly glad to see him. "Hello to you, too," she said. "What got the better of you last night?"

"A five hour game of beer pong with a Christian fellowship that was traveling through. There was a choir bus. Oh god, the things they did...the things _I_ did...don't make me relive it."

"I have no words," Jo said. She perched on the arm of the couch, ignoring the mess of greased, paper plates and mangled computer parts. "Look, Bela's in trouble. Or at least she's about to be. She's messed up in some creepsauce virgin sacrifice thing without realizing." 

He cracked an eye. "Wait, wait, hold on." He sat slowly, rubbing the heel of his hand into his temple and saying with difficulty. "Bela? As in Bela Talbot? And you know that's not her real name, right?"

"Yes. But how do you?"

"Sam called. He and I have a thing going on and he happened to slip that one in, and I was like _whoa. what?_ "

"Well anyway, we need to tell her. And also you need to hear what Tamara said about the daggers."

Ash squinted at her as if he was having trouble following. 

Jo jumped to her feet. "Come on, up and at 'em. Daylight's burning. Chop chop."

Ash groaned as he struggled from the couch. "No day but today, right? Let's get this show on the road."

They set up at the bar, Ash with his retrofitted laptop and Jo with Tamara's binder. She went over what Tamara had found, and Ash made interested noises about the spell, hunching over a mug of coffee.

"That sounds like no good," he said.

"No shit, Sherlock."

Jo let him at it, eating her fill of bar pretzels and spacing out until she was dozing against one arm. She'd driven twelve hours to get here and now that she'd reached her destination, she couldn't keep going.

"You look like the walking dead," Ash said, and when Jo yawned and opened her eyes, she saw he had an internet page open about sex magic.

"You better clear your browser history," Jo yawned again, and let her eyes fall shut, just for a moment.

 

 

 

 

The next time she woke it was to the sound of a plate clinking down in front of her. Fried eggs, toast. A tall, cold glass of orange juice.

"Joanna Beth," came her momma's voice. "There had better be a good explanation for the shape of that car of yours."

Jo opened her eyes, about to explain the muddy road in Wyoming after a hard rain storm, how she didn't exactly have the cash to get it premium washed, when she caught sight of the smile on Ellen's face.

She nearly fell off the tall stool as she was wrapped in a tight hug.

"I missed you," Ellen said, petting her hair. Her voice was quiet. Jo hugged her back.

"Where's Ash?" she said, noticing suddenly that it was eleven o'clock and the usual crowd of customers was working away at their meals and chatting about weaponry.

Ellen handed her a fork. "Ash said something about a party bus and went back to his room. Jo, you look like you could use a good night's sleep."

"Everyone keeps telling me that."

"Eat your breakfast. Or more like lunch. You looked like one of our regulars, asleep like that at the bar with that gun sticking out of your back pocket. Sloppy." She sent a wave to Old Mike a few tables over. "No offence, Mike."

"None taken," he called back.

Jo took a bite of buttery toast and sighed in happiness. "There is nothing like home," she swore.

"Ash is looking something up for you. Wouldn't tell me what."

"It's for a—"

"A case? I figured as much." Her mom's lips were pursed but she continued. "Regardless,you can't head out again tonight."

"But—"

"I know you don't like it, but take a look at the sky outside and you might agree with me."

Jo looked. Dark clouds were building up against the edge of the sky, promising rain and flooded fields that would wash over the cornfields, flood the highway. 

"And Jo," Ellen said. " You just got home. It can't be that urgent that you won't spend one night."

Jo wasn't certain about that. Bela could be in trouble, or very well already dead. But maybe she was fine, very rich and living life to the fullest somewhere far away. She imagined Bela climbing up to the Jesus statue in Rio, or wandering the labyrinthine streets of the Dodecanese, spare euros on the nightstand of her whitewashed villa, the sea crashing just outside.

She shook her head. "Momma…It's not like that."

Ellen's eyes were a little wet when she smiled at Jo. "I get it," she said. "You've gotta have a life of your own. And lord knows if anyone can take care of herself it's my baby girl."

 

 

 

 

By late afternoon, it was wild outside. The storm beat at the shutters and Jo stopped moping around once the wind picked up, helping Ellen tie down tarps to make sure the windows of the old truck were closed so the thing didn't fill up with dirt like last time. The damp air smelled warm and electric.

When Ash reemerged from his room, Jo tried to cajole him into a game of darts.

"Thanks," he said. "But you're real antsy. Someone would probably come in, and you'd take aim."

"I don't think I'd manage to kill someone with a dart," Jo argued.

"But imagine what'd happen if you took an old-timer by surprise like that."

She winced. "Cards it is, then."

They played for an hour, Hearts and then Texas Hold 'Em. Jo sucked away the layer of sugar at the bottom of her glass of lemonade with a straw and Ash's expression remained inscrutable, stoned or strategic was anyone's guess. 

After he'd beat Jo for the third round, he said, seemingly out of nowhere but Jo knew immediately who he meant, "She's gonna be okay, Jo."

Jo hadn't realized that her leg was jumping restlessly under the table.

"I'm doing a serious search for anything about Bela's buyer and anything about the daggers, but maybe you need to decide to let this one go. If what you say is true," he said, sensing her resistance. "She doesn't need help from anybody." 

"You're probably right." She didn't sound convincing, and Ash looked like he didn't think so either. He was willing to let it slide though.

"So what's been going on?" he asked. "You've saved a buttload of people now or something? They going to name cities after you?"

She nodded. "Yup. Jo-ville."

"Jotopia?"

"Please, Jostown. Sadly, hunters never have cities named after them."

Ash looked at her steady. "Maybe a bar, then."

"I could live with that," she said, thinking how Ash had always put up with her shit but never let her dwell on things. They were on their fifth game, six nickels on the table between them and she felt miles better than she had that morning.

She said, "I just want to know I'm being useful, you know?" 

Ash swept the rest of her money off the table. "You are," he said. "You just funded another six-pack."

"You're welcome," she said. "Thanks, Ash."

Ash had it figured out, she thought. He'd started renting his small room by the week and had never left. He may have been in the middle of nowhere as far as Jo was concerned, but he had project upon project he was working on in his mancave, his bed covered in charts and beer cans. And he was doing just fine.

"You going soft on me?"

She shook her head. "You wish."

After their game, Jo went upstairs and threw herself on her bed. Her shoes were arranged by the door and the sheets were tucked neatly, and she imagined Ellen organizing them in the months she was away. She stared at the ceiling, pushing away the pang of guilt, feeling paralysed with indecision. She had to decide what her next move would be.

 _Maybe I'll figure it out tomorrow_ , she thought into her pillow, and then went listlessly to take a shower.

But then Bela came back like an omen in the storm.

"Nothing like a good entrance," Jo would have said if she'd been there to see it, but she was just out of the shower and drying her hair at the sink, all of her things still lined up in the bathroom medicine cabinet where she'd left them nearly half a year ago.

She could still hear the wind over the sound of the blow dryer, and even louder when she shut it off, a distant howling and the creaking of the roof. It was strange to be home, a ship in the storm.

She brushed out her hair, before wrapping up in a pink, fluffy towel and padding down the hall. Wind was smacking against the one-pane window like something solid, and the scene felt eerie and dark when she stepped over the threshold of her bedroom. 

She froze in place at the sight of a silhouette standing over her desk, touching the blade of Jo's knife, running a fingertip over the flat place Jo knew initials were etched.

Jo switched on the light.

"Oh, thank God," Bela said, taking her time noticing Jo like she hadn't just been caught going through Jo's things. "You're a long time in the shower."

Jo gaped like a fish.

Bela barely spared her a glance as she passed, picking up a green towel off the back of the door. "I found this in the closet," she said, as if that was the part that needed explaining. She brushed past Jo on her way out of the room. "Your mum told me this was where I'd be staying. Looks like she's kicking you out for the night."

Then, she was gone.

Jo stared at the empty doorway for a moment in disbelief, torn between incredulity and relief. It seemed possible the last five seconds had been imagined, and yet equally possible Bela would reappear momentarily to explain herself.

When neither happened, Jo sprang into action, slamming the bedroom door shut and locking it.

On autopilot, she dropped her towel from her body, yanked open a dresser drawer, and stepped into underwear. Ignoring the implications of pulling on her favorite lace bra, she did up the clasp. Then, she snatched her jeans up off the floor and hurried into them. Buttoned, zipped, then pulled on a pink tank top and her red hoodie, which she zipped up to her neck in a show of propriety.

"Ok," she told her reflection in the mirror. She sucked in a breath, and let her hair free from its ponytail. Deciding against it, she let it down again. She added some volume with her fingers and was disgusted when it fell flat anyway.

This was the only time in recent history Jo could remember this flustered need to act this _girly_.

She gave her reflection one last stern look. "Ugh, whatever." 

She slipped on some ballet flats that felt cheap tonight, and then went to her desk to put the knife in her top drawer where it should have been locked in the first place, where she could have sworn it had been. She locked it again, irritated, and hid the small key on the top of the doorframe this time, instead of in her underwear drawer.

That done, she glanced around for anything else that Bela might have tampered with. It felt like her room had been infiltrated, like someone had scratched the salt lines and invited something in. Her eyes landed on the bed, at her pillows that had pink stars on them, wondering what Bela thought when she saw Jo's childhood things that she still loved today.

The idea was thrilling, yes, but Jo was more annoyed than anything. She'd been worried sick about Bela, for near on two days. She'd been ready to rush off headlong when she found out what direction to go in, but now here Bela was, waltzing in like all that imminent danger had been nothing.

"Momma," she said, striding downstairs and past two drunks arm wrestling and a lady telling some story or another by the pool table. 

Her mom was clearing down the bar, while three women in biker jackets lounged with tumblers of whiskey in front of them. It was only eight PM, and the room had a real end of the world feel to it, the storm blowing the outside audibly, the music even louder on the jukebox, everyone having a good time, the Roadhouse fixed like a safe harbor between here and out there.

"Apparently I'm giving up my room for the night?" Jo asked.

Ellen screwed the cap on a bottle of SoCo and placed it back on the shelf below the bar. "I know," she said, apparently untroubled that some near stranger was upstairs going through all of Jo's earthly belongings. "I told her to stay."

"You what?" Jo couldn't help the incredulous squeak in her voice.

Ellen filled her an ice water and passed it across the bar. "The poor girl walked in half an hour ago she looked like she'd been driving for a day. I imagined it was you coming in some strange place, and offered her a bed right then and there."

"But my bed?" asked Jo, at a loss. 

Jo was 21 years old, but she only just managed to stop herself from stamping her foot. They'd always kept a couple of spare rooms for rent, as well as some cots out back for when folks came through who needed a place to camp out for the night. Hell, Ash slept on the pool table half the time leaving his own, perfectly good bed empty. 

Ellen wiped down the beer taps and then tossed the rag into a pile of dirty ones. She turned and gave Jo a searching look. "I don't see where the problem is," she said. "Wasn't this the girl you said came in a while ago? British? Real pretty? The one you talked about for days last time - the artist?"

Jo sighed. "It wasn't _days_. And I said she was an art dealer, not artist. There's a huge difference."

"The way you talked, I figured you hit it off."

Jo frowned. "Nope, she keeps ditching me."

"Well, she seems nice, even if she does throw those looks around like a weapon." Ellen laughed. "I asked her if she wanted a place to stay, or at the very least a drink. She said she'd see about payment in a second. You should have seen her cheating Old Mike at poker — had the whole place betting on one side or the other. I have a feeling you two aren't all that different."

Jo shoved her hands in her pockets. "I resent that!" But she was laughing, too, the idea of Bela working up a whole bar til they didn't know what had hit them, and Ellen smiled back.

"So, what's the verdict?"

Jo couldn't pinpoint where the problem was, exactly. If she was honest with herself, she wanted Bela to stay, whatever her reasons were. She shrugged. "Well, it's not like I have much else to do."

"It's settled then. This isn't just me trying to take care of a stray— you could do with a friend."

"Mom!"

"And Jo," Ellen said. When Jo looked back over her shoulder, her momma continued. "I get the feeling she could do with one, too. Now go. And you be polite now."

Jo rolled her eyes. "You know me, I'm always polite."

"My baby girl is home, safe and sound." Ellen sniffed. "Now move along."

Twenty minutes later, when Bela came downstairs, Jo immediately lost her place in the conversation she'd been having with Ash about whether the storm outside was a natural one or some supernatural windstorm brought down by angry spirits _en masse_ , or possibly some sort of dead weather man haunting this part of the state.

Bela looked fresh, and clean out of a magazine, dressed in skinny jeans and a black pullover, her glossy hair tied in a loose ponytail over one shoulder. 

Ash turned to look, too, and his eyes went wide. "Oh, so _that's_ Bel—"

Jo's shoe connecting with his shin thankfully shut him up.

Bela took a seat at their table with enviable grace.

"So," Jo said to her. "You here for more information? Or just the hell of it? I doubt this is a social call."

"Whoa, slow down," Ash interjected, giving Bela an apologetic smile. "How about food first, business later, Jo? Girl's obviously been traveling."

"Thank you," Bela said. She gave a cat-like stretch. "It's true, I've been driving for quite some time. And I didn't sleep much last night. A Texan millionaire had me up until all hours - but I don't want to be indiscrete."

"Oh, brother." Jo rolled her eyes.

Bela looked nonplussed.

"How do drinks sound?"

Jo shoved her chair back before Bela answered. She grabbed the three of them sodas from the back, annoyed at Bela for acting so blase about disappearing.

She leaned against the sink, holding the coke bottles to her, taking a deep breath to sort herself out. 

Despite everything, she found herself smiling. Bela was _alive_.

When she'd pulled herself together, she came out of the back. The familiarity hit her then: the room, the customers, the bartop polished to an inch of its life. But also there, in a corner, the closest thing Jo had to a best friend, or even brother, sat in animated discussion with her wild and wayward thief. As she watched, Bela leaned interestedly in toward Ash, who explained something with his hands.

When Jo approached, Bela gave her an unreadable look — something distracted, and almost nice — as she accepted the Coke and kept listening to Ash. 

"Yeah," Ash continued. "I guess you could say I'm the on-call technician around here. And when I say on-call, I do mean twenty-four seven."

"And he's one hell of a researcher," Jo interjected.

"Meaning?"

Jo shrugged. "He can find anything that needs to be found."

Ash cracked his knuckles. "Anytime, anywhere."

"He went to MIT." Jo was proud of Ash for that, and even more proud that he'd done what he wanted with it. Independent work, odd jobs for hunters passing through. He saved the world in his own way. "He's that kid who builds computers from spare parts in his free time."

"Which I imagine he has a lot of," Bela said.

"Hey!" Jo said, outraged. "We don't know each other well enough for you to be dissing our lifestyle here. And for your information, the Roadhouse is plenty busy."

Jo might have imagined the sparkle of humor in Bela's eyes as Bela said, "I'm sure it is."

"Ash, tell her!"

Ash belched in response.

"Ew, Ash!" Jo said, just as Bela grimaced and said, "that's utterly disgusting." 

Ash ignored them both. "Speaking of geniuses. Jo here may not have graduated but she's pretty much a genius. Probably the youngest bartender in the state, did she tell you that?"

Bela shook her head. 

Ash leaned back in his chair. "Mixing drinks from an early age, a real child prodigy. Made a mean snakebite, but it's not like anyone was going to talk to the authorities if you know what I mean."

Bela widened her eyes. "Yes, I've seen how dangerous Jo is with a liquor bottle and shaker. And I know about her...martial arts training."

Ash laughed in surprise. "Jo? Martial arts?" 

"Hey!" Jo said, somewhat indignant. "It's not like I was going to tell her what I really did. It was the first cover I could think of!"

"Good cover," Ash wiped at his eyes.

"What's so funny about the idea of me doing martial arts?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"Yes, you're a paragon of discipline and restraint," Bela agreed, too sweetly.

Jo raised an eyebrow. She'd allowed herself to forget how very smug Bela could be.

"Well, I could if I wanted to," she muttered.

Bela changed the subject, looking around the place and asking, "It's just you and your mother?"

"Maybe," said Jo. "Where've you been since you jumped out that window and left me high and dry?"

"What now?" Ash said. Jo hadn't told him that part, and especially hadn't told him about the kiss. It felt like a secret, just for them.

Bela didn't seem fazed. She quirked her lips, like she was amused. "Is that how this is going to go?"

"Excuse me if I don't want to talk about my personal life with a complete stranger. A thief, no less," Jo said. And although it came out harsher than she'd intended, that didn't mean it was any less true.

Bela leaned in, a spark of interest that Jo liked as much as she found it infuriating. "You know I love a good mystery."

"No you don't, you just like information."

"Buying and selling, that's all information is good for. Call it a healthy capitalist spirit."

"More like extortion for the highest price?"

"Like I said." Bela held her gaze. "How about this? I'll answer one if you do."

"Information for information." Jo nodded slowly. "Ok, deal. It's my mom and me, and whoever lodges for the night. What did you want with Drake really?"

"As I told you, Mr. Drake was in possession of a certain relic that I was contracted to find."

"To steal," Jo finished for her. 

Bela inclined her head, but she didn't comment, only asked her next question. "What is it you do here?"

Jo answer evenly. "I serve food and pour drinks and kick out anyone who gets too rowdy."

"And let me guess, you play the coy act to exploit old timers for pocket change?"

"More or less. What does this Smith character want with both daggers?" When Bela looked shocked, Jo leaned in. "Because that's what you relieved Mr. Drake of, isn't it? The twin to the dagger I helped you find."

For the first time since Jo met her, Bela looked uncertain. She paused for a long moment before answering. "They're wanted by a powerful man for a purpose I don't care to guess at."

"So you didn't ask what he wanted them for?"

"As you may have gathered, I've a powerful weakness for money," Bela drawled. "Get in and get out is my motto. The less unnecessary detail I have to deal with, the better."

"What if I told you that the daggers were a part of a spell that Smith thinks can get him into the afterlife?"

Bela raised an eyebrow. "I'd say it's none of my business what Smith does with the daggers."

"Oh look," Ash said, cutting the tense moment short. "Food."

Ellen put plates down in front of them and Jo rolled her eyes when Bela thanked her in polished manners.

"Joanna," her mom prompted and Jo muttered thanks as well. Ellen nodded and put down the final plate. When her mom turned to Ash, Bela mouthed, 'Joanna?' Jo ignored her.

"Ash," said Ellen. "You sure you only want fries and a piece of cake? We've got a whole pan of lasagna in the back."

Ash combed his fingers through his hair. "Nah, I already had a six-pack, I'm good." He sniffed, grabbed a fork and knife in either fist, and dug into the cake. 

As soon as Ellen left, Jo leaned forward again. "What if I told you it was a spell that called for the sacrifice of two virgins on the night of the new moon? You're telling me you don't care?"

"Not my problem. Smith could cast a powerful spell and curse the world or use the daggers to spread jam at teatime, it would make no difference to me."

Jo didn't think it sounded like Bela's heart was really in it, imagined that she was a decent person who liked to think of herself as a hardened criminal. Unless it was the 9tger way around.

Bela took a bite of her hamburger that she'd cut cleanly while Jo squirted mustard in a prim glob on one side of her plate rather than drizzling it all over her tater tots like she normally would. Jo watched as Bela folded her napkin onto her lap, and realized suddenly that she was mimicking her straight posture (almost) unconsciously. She slumped back in her chair again, scowling. 

After dinner, Bela declined dessert and instead just sipped coffee while Jo ate a few bites of the banana cream pie and started in on her third soda. Ash was talking in slow tones about internet privacy and how he got around firewalls, which had Bela's attention.

Jo held up a hand to interrupt. "The wind's died down. This might be the only time to get stuff out of your car." There was a tell-tale patter of rain on the roof but the shutters had stopped banging in a short reprieve from the wind.

They stood, and when Jo opened the door the sky outside seemed discolored and low, more ominous than the red and orange dirt that had billowed in clouds earlier to block out the sun.

She had goosebumps all up her arms on over her shoulders, the back of her neck. Wet dust sloped against tires of haphazardly parked vehicles in piles and made mud against the front steps.

"Looks like twister weather," Ash noted, smelling the air while Bela unlocked the trunk of her Mercedes. 

Jo shook her head. "I still go with cursed weather man." 

"Or did we decide the atmospheric disturbances were demonic omens?" Ash said as he slung Bela's bag over his shoulder. Jo rolled her eyes. Ash being what he believed to be chivalrous was hilarious, especially when directed at a girl like Bela.

"You never know," she said.

They both were smiling as they went to head inside, but when Jo looked over her shoulder, Bela was frozen in place.

"Demonic omens?" she repeated, eyes wide. 

Jo laughed. "Yeah, rethinking coming to Nebraska?" But when Bela didn't look all too comforted, Jo shrugged and said, "Don't worry about it. Demon attacks are rare, and almost always targeted."

She remembered black eyes then, and how an altogether nice guy like Sam could be so easily transformed. She shivered and opened the front door, letting them in first and then hurrying after.

"Just don't go making any deals and you'll be fine," she said.

"I think I'd like to go to sleep now," Bela said. "Time is catching up with me."

There was a tightness to Bela's shoulders under her jacket, and Jo inexplicably couldn't wait to get Bela upstairs where she had painted the perimeter of her room with salt.

By the stairs, Ash gave them a salute.

"Good evening, ladies," he said, flipping the sign on his door to read _Doctor Badass is in_ before he went inside. He would be up for hours, Jo knew, researching Smith for her and the daggers. Bela would never have to know.

Jo'd spent many a long night keeping him company as he working on whatever odd project was his hobby at the moment, Jo perched in a chair poring over zombie comics with the desk lamp on until the gray of dawn sent her yawning back to her own room.

They bade goodnight to a few customers and Jo's momma, and Bela made a point to say, "I appreciate the hospitality, Ellen," which Jo could tell really won her mom over.

This impression was confirmed when Ellen said, "You ask for anything you need, you hear? Jo's not the warmest host."

Jo straightened. "Momma!"

"I will," Bela assured her, then followed Jo to climb the old stairs that creaked reassuringly underfoot, like theirs was a haunted house.

"So…" Jo started when they'd reached Jo's room. 

She was about to ask why Bela was really here or at the very least how long Bela would possibly stay. But Bela was looking around the room in a way that made Jo realize how very small and dingy it must look, and how fiercely she loved it despite the many afternoons spent imagining escape plans. She was suddenly overcome with the surreal quality of the night, the storm outside battling to get in and Bela safe here, where Jo had grown up.

"What are you thinking about?" Jo said. 

"It must be a lonely life," Bela said starkly.

Jo put a hand on her hip. "Thanks."

"Living with your mum, I mean. Working at a bar and surrounded by people who, more often than not, don't have the inclination to give you the time of day." Bela gave the room another look and nodded. "Lonely."

"Yeah, well. It's home."

"You have little more than a few trinkets to your name and a closet-full of weapons. Only a laptop to keep you company and a sheaf of half-filled uni applications, dated…" she flipped a page on the desk. "Two years ago." She shrugged. "Some home. You're lonely, doesn't take a lot of noticing."

"Real polite," Jo said, fighting a flush, although she knew she had nothing to be embarrassed about.

Thing was, Jo had entertained vague fantasies of someone coming in and saying just that: _You're lonely. I've taken the time to notice._ In these half-baked fantasies, this nameless person could see instantly what Jo had to offer and wanted Jo to come with her. In real life, Bela could take care of herself and definitely didn't need her.

Bela was watching her, looked like she was ready to be asked to leave, like she was showing Jo the price of her honesty and saying _I told you so_. Jo half-wanted to give her the satisfaction, an urge to be malicious right back surging up in her.

Instead, she moved to the closet where her clothes were organized by color, and changed into a red t-shirt that was old and soft at the shoulder. Hesitating only briefly, she bent to pull off her damp jeans, too, and exchanged them for warm, flannel pajama pants. 

And when she turned, Bela was gone.

At the twist in her gut, Jo twisted her hair savagely into a bun at the nape of her neck, eyes immediately burning with unshed tears. She slung her jeans over the desk chair to dry, and grabbed a pair of soft socks and climbed into bed before allowing herself to succumb completely to disappointment. 

"Why'd you even come here in the first place, if you're just going to disappear again?" she whispered.

It was probably for the best, of course. Bela was too big for this place, Bela had a life of crime to go back to, all buyers and buried treasure.

The creak of a floorboard gave Bela away. Jo took her face out of the pillow and saw that Bela had reentered the room, this time in blue nightie that looked like it was straight out of a Victoria's Secret catalog, short and very flattering.

She must have been freezing, sockless on the wood floor, but she looked poised nonetheless. And around her neck hung Jo's lockett.

"Don't look so surprised," Bela said. "I had to clean my teeth. Unlike some people." She looked down her nose at Jo.

Jo grabbed a near-empty container of breath mints from the bedside table and put one in her mouth demonstratively.

Bela began examining her nails, attempting to look uninterested, until Jo remembered that Bela was sleeping there that night. She sat up. "Right, you take the bed." 

"I wouldn't dream of—"

"Just get in the damn bed," Jo said, clambering out.

Jo briefly imagined sharing it. The twin mattress would be roomy enough for two people but still closer than sleepovers ought to be.

Jo began moving toward the door, but then she gasped when Bela' gripped her arm, and spun her up against the wall. It was an exact mirroring of the moment in the mansion, a quiet intensity she'd felt in the dark mansion study, that she'd thought of ever since.

"I don't bite," Bela lied, a smirk twisting the bow of her mouth.

In one fluid motion, Jo had her flipped onto the mattress.

"Pinned," she said.

She had Bela's arm secured above her head, Bela's legs bracketed by her own so that if Bela even so much as twitched she'd have her restrained and tied up in the sheet and to the bedpost, before either of them could even blink. She took a moment to breathe, admiring the lovely splay of Bela's hair over her childish pillow.

Then, the electricity went out.

Bela gasped, a strangely human reaction from her.

"Must be the storm," Jo breathed. She could feel the rise of Bela's chest against hers, was acutely aware of the beat of Bela's pulse under her hand. She whispered,"Blew over a power line."

She could have let Bela up she knew, but didn't, instead waiting and waiting.

"You can't go," she said, when the silence had stretched and she could just make out the glitter of Bela's eyes in the pitch dark. "To Smith's, I mean."

"And why's that?"

"Maybe I'd rather you hang around here than be out there getting arrested for acts of thievery." 

That wasn't why, not really, but Bela took the bait. Jo thought she might be more merciful than she tried to let on. "Arrested!" Bela said. "I'm better than that, I assure you."

"Right, right. You just seem like you could use a safe house."

Bela was quiet for a long time, before she said, "My instructions were to bring the second dagger to Smith on a specific date. Tomorrow."

"Don't you wonder why he wants you to bring it on a certain date? Because it's the new moon maybe?"

Jo could imagine the affronted look on Bela's face when she said, "I can look out for myself."

"I know you can." Jo sighed. Letting go of Bela's wrists, she settled beside her. "Of course you can, I don't have any doubt. It's just— Call it hunter's instincts, call it a stupid hunch or superstition, but I'm dead certain he knows about the power of the daggers. What do you think he's going to do once you bring the last one to him, once he slaughters two girls? Let you go? You have to be at least a bit hesitant too, given the nature of the spell."

"Of course I'm hesitant. You think I like being at the beck and call of a man like Smith? I bloody well don't. I'd much rather spend tomorrow night relaxing in my flat in New York City, treating myself to a bubble bath and sipping champagne, but I haven't got a choice on this one."

"Because of the money?" Jo asked.

"Yes, because of the money. Once I get what he owes me, money which I've earned at least twice over now," Bela laughed, a bitter sound. "Once I get that, well..."

"You'll disappear," Jo finished for her.

"Exactly."

Jo breathed out, wanting to say more, to argue. She was desperate to come up with some way to entice Bela, some way to make her stay. It was like the darkness gave them a certain conversational leeway, like she could say things to Bela candidly here while she could only make out her vague features as their eyes adjusted to the dark.

But she had nothing. Couldn't bargain with her, had no riches to offer in recompense. They weren't even playing the same game, let alone on the same team. 

"Don't go," she said simply.

Bela snorted. "Is this where you try to reform me?"

Jo ignored her. "Look, I get that we're different," she said. "I get that you've got the world at your feet and you can leave whenever you damn feel like it. You can taunt dangerous men and toy with magic. But I wish you wouldn't."

When no response seemed to be forthcoming, Jo rolled away. She pulled the sheets and quilts up over them both and stretched out on her front with her arms under the pillow, allowing her eyes to fall closed. Bela remained on her back next to her, maybe looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that Jo had stuck onto her ceiling a million years ago.

It was quiet between them for a long time. It felt like they'd tread somewhere deeper, the silence growing wild between them and more telling.

"Please don't go tomorrow," she said again.

Bela's voice came closer than Jo had expected. "Please don't ask me to stay."

"Bela."

"I'll be gone in the morning. I've got to. "

"But…" Jo said. "But you like me."

This one point seemed to make all the rest of it nonsensical. 

"Leave it to you," Bela said, her voice some mixture of fond and indignant. "Jo, I can't."

"Give me a reason that makes sense."

"I've dealt with rich men and mob bosses — criminals for all I know. But you're a different species of big bad entirely. It just wouldn't be very clever."

"Why not?"

"If I do you wrong, which I know for certain I will—" Jo glared at her in the dark, but dipped in closer when Bela tugged at a lock of her hair. Bela continued. "It wouldn't be...strategic...to take up with someone who could find me if she set herself to the task, someone as dangerous as you. That would threaten this whole operation. I'd rather be alone."

Jo laughed but it came out bitterly. She shivered as Bela's soft mouth parted against hers, as Bela dragged Jo to her in the dark, at odds with everything she'd just said. Jo rolled in to get closer. She could feel Bela's breasts against hers through the thin satin of her nightie, and smoothed her hands over warm skin wherever she could. 

She covered the gold heart with the palm of her hand, fingers splaying over Bela's collarbone and then winding in the chain.

"You stole it and have the gall to wear it yourself." 

Bela smiled against her mouth, and Jo ran a hand up Bela's bare thigh, thumbing her hip bone. Bela curved against her without hesitation and her hair slid like silk as Jo tried to get the clasp of her locket undone one-handed. Bela caught her at it of course, kissing her to distraction and nudging a leg between hers until Jo had to give up the locket for lost for the time being, moaning. It was a warm, toe curling kind of good, even though she knew she shouldn't trust it. She was happy, stupidly.

It was hot under the covers, and Jo was feeling easy now, more relaxed, drifting. She felt like she hadn't slept in days with worry, but now that Bela was here, finally she could rest. 

And before she opened her mouth to speak she was waking up, opening her eyes to quiet light streaming through the drapes, and when she lifted up on an elbow, the only trace of Bela seemed to be an empty space by the door where Jo's shoes had been.

There came a thundering of footsteps, but it was only Ash's voice when the door swung open. Jo fell back onto the pillow.

"Where is she?" he said, out of breath.

"She left," Jo told the ceiling.

"Jo," he said, in a voice that was so full of dread that Jo sat up to look. His eyes were pleading in a way that she'd never seen before. "Tell me she's not going to Smith's."

She looked to the sheaf of printouts he held in a shaking hand. "Why? What did you find out?"

"I couldn't find much on Smith or the origin of the daggers, so I ran the original spell through my translation program. You know, just in case. I mean, the language the spell was in was old and I didn't recognize it and my program is good but it's still in beta, but—-"

"Ash!"

"Sorry, right. So I ran it through, and…"

"How different is this translation?"

"...Let's just say we've got a problem."

 

 

 

 

Jo was packed and ready to go in fifteen minutes, shoving a couple essentials in a backpack. But even so, it was already noon which meant Bela had a two-hour headstart at least. She ran down the stairs.

"Take this," Ash said before she left, handing her a slip of paper through Ellen's hug.

It was Smith's address and a phone number.

"That's Bela's number," he said. "Or at least the burner phone she's using."

Jo didn't have time to ask how he'd gotten it.

"You're a flippin' genius," she said and not for the first time. "Mom—"

"You make sure you come back in one piece," said her mom, and Jo felt a burst of pride that even the worry couldn't quash.

"I will," said Jo, and raced out of the Roadhouse.

She had weapons and Smith's address, and the sun riding high in the sky that told her Bela was still alive. At least for now, at least until tonight. How Jo was going to take care of Smith when she got to was yet to be seen, but for now all Jo could do was flip open her phone and hit dial.

The phone rang. "Come on, Bela, pick up. Don't be dead." 

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, amped up. The phone rang and rang. 

She called another time, and another. Five times, imagining any moment she'd hear that crisp voice, the note of disdain that would let her know Bela was alive and well.

She stopped herself from calling again, clenching her phone in her hand, wondering what the chances were Bela was safe and sound, just choosing not to answer, or had smashed her cell for another burner.

"Goddammit."

She was zooming away from home, but she was zooming towards something, a significant moment, a friend in trouble. There were the occasional cars, truckers who were going the distance, but she passed them all by. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was evening time and the highway was long and thin, that necessary middle ground between where you were going and where you wanted to be. The wait was killing her.

Jo's phone vibrated in the central console, and she fumbled her phone from the middle of the seats, flipping it open, pulse racing. 

"Bela?"

"No," said a guy's voice.

Jo sighed. "Dean."

"But Bela's why I called," he said. "You seen that chick lately?"

Jo shook her head, before remembering Dean wasn't there, couldn't see her shake her head or eyes well up. 

"Nuh uh," she said.

"I haven't either. Things have been quiet. Too quiet, you know? Then we heard something, something that I thought might've been about her. I don't know. Something about a buyer and a thief and some heavy witchcraft. I just thought you might want to know."

She cleared her throat, headlights illuminating a mile marker for a brief second before she passed it by. "I know. I'm taking care of it."

There was a long silence, then Dean offered, "You need backup? We're in Florida but it's no trouble."

"Thanks. But I got it."

"Ok."

"It's just—" She took in a deep breath, gripping the steering wheel. "Dean, you remember what you said about being careful? With Bela, I mean."

"Yeah. Why? What happened?"

"Nothing. It's nothing. It's just, I wanted to say thanks for the advice."

"You taking it?"

"No." Jo laughed, and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Hey, you ever get a handle on that thing you were worried about?"

"What are you—" he started.

"I don't know, I thought I could hear it in your voice. The past few months, and you've been on some manic trip. Is something really wrong?"

Dean laughed, but she knew she'd hit home. Instead of answering, he said, "Hey, what's with the third degree?" 

He wasn't going to tell her. Somehow, that felt worse than anything, that if someone she counted as a friend, a fellow hunter, couldn't trust her, why'd she expect someone like Bela to do anything but hold her at a distance.

"You know what, never mind," she said. "I'm on a long drive and, well, you know."

He sighed. "Yeah, I know." 

Jo wanted to argue, or maybe demand he tell her what was up with him, maybe she could help. She had two hours to go and nothing to think about other than Bela in danger. She found herself momentarily unable to speak, throat thick, like if she took a breath even, that would be it.

"Jo? You still there?"

She swallowed, blinking. She'd been crying way too much lately, but at least it was where no one could see. "Hm?"

"Jo." His voice was low, gravely and far off on the other end of line, the sound of a distant truck horn and the wash of rain — driving too, then. 

Jo remembered a time when she'd wanted him in this accidental, easy sort of way. He'd been such a dork, with the stick-outy ears and the swagger, and a smile that said he might be the type to publicly embarrass himself for her if need be.

But now here she was, driving down a lonely highway and asking him to comfort her for something that had nothing to do with anyone else, least of all him.

"Just—" he said. "Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy, you know?"

Jo breathed in deep. "Don't you quote that at me like it's yours, Dean Winchester."

"Hey, take it easy," he crooned.

She gave him a real laugh then. It felt good, like pressure was being relieved from her chest. "Shut up."

"We may lose, or we may win—"

"Just, just stop Dean. You're cheesier than I remember."

"But we'll never be here again—"

"How Sam can even stand it is beyond me."

"Kid loves it, can't get enough of it," Dean said with the kind of fondness that made it impossible to believe it wasn't so. "You take care, Jo. Next time I talk to you I wanna hear a story of how you saved the day."

It didn't sound like a _next time_ from where she was sitting, it sounded like goodbye.

"Knock 'em dead, Dean," she said.

"Maybe I will."


	4. Chapter 4

Breaking and entering was easy. Jo simply ducked the motion-sensing floodlights mounted on the gate to Smith's mansion of a house, then she sprinted up the lawn and around to pick the lock on the back door in a quarter of a minute.

"Thanks, mom," she muttered, sliding the lock-picking kit she'd begged for one birthday back into her pocket. 

And when she was certain there was no one in the first room, she stepped into the house on soft feet, pulling the door closed gently behind her, on her guard, ears perked for the smallest sign of Smith.

So much fighting happened in houses, terrible rows while neighbors slept quietly on either side. This well-manicured house on Wisteria Lane was boring on the outside, large, beautiful, and unassuming with a hedgerow and a massive driveway, but the extensive knife collection her eyes landed on when she stepped into the living room had another story to tell.

The knives were backlit like a museum display, mounted and hung like treasures in a glass case. They ranged from butcher cleavers to elegant poignards, and stretched across nearly the entire back wall.

"Bingo," she whispered, moving closer to the wall, searching for two daggers in particular. When she failed to find them, a cold shiver ran up her neck. If they weren't here, they were potentially with Smith, possibly in use, which would be a very bad thing.

Or possibly Smith was just a knife enthusiast, a hobbyist, and he'd never heard of the spell or myth behind it. Maybe it had been a coincidence that he'd invited Bela to his home the night of the New Moon.

Bullshit.

The bloody trail on the carpet under her feet seemed to corroborate this. She jumped away so she wasn't standing directly on it, and followed it behind the sofa with her breath held.

It led to a rolled up carpet heaped in the shadows. 

"Tell me that's not a body in there," Jo breathed, and thought for the first time ever that maybe she should've set out on a different career path.

She swung her flashlight around again to make sure she was alone and then advanced on the carpet. She jumped as the clock struck midnight, heart in her throat, she kicked aside the edge of the carpet and flinched back at the sight of gore and blood and limbs.

She swallowed thickly against the taste of bile and pulled the carpet back further to reveal the gutted carcass of a deer, eyes black like a demon's, blank. 

That memory gave Jo the creeps, but she shook it off, dropping the corner of the rug back over the deer's body. She had to keep her head in the game. 

Which was when she caught a flicker of something out of the corner of her eyes, and the creak of a floorboard a couple feet away sent her into a quick roll. A gunshot rang out, followed immediately by a second, tearing through the quiet of the house. 

She was already diving behind the couch, rolling across the carpet and sprinting into the adjoining door.

After a few shallow breaths, and silence from the living room, she crouched to peer around the corner. Two bodies were laid out on the floor with matching bullet holes in their foreheads. If she hadn't ducked, she realized, both of those bullets would have been hers.

She got to her feet and went to stand over them. They were definitely dead, eyes sightless, limbs in awkward positions. She'd never seen a death before, not a dead human at least, and felt the edge of panic setting her pulse thrumming. She could either cry in relief that she hadn't just been murdered in cold blood or sit down and sob. 

As she was waiting to see which would happen first, a blow fell heavily on the back of her head, and Jo collapsed to the soft carpet.

Never let your guard down, she thought swimmily as the world greyed out around her. Never believe you're safe. Always look behind you. 

These were things she would have to remember for the future.

 

 

 

 

 

"Well, well, well. What have we here?" 

A man's face swam into focus in the half light of what could only be a creepy basement. Jo had a second to get her bearings before he'd grabbed her by the hair, forcing her head back painfully in the chair.

"Ouch," Jo coughed, the ache in her head making it difficult to focus or catch her breath. 

The place where his boot connected with her kidney area a moment later would bruise terribly, she knew, and would hurt like hell after she was out of here.

Because she _would_ make it out of here.

Smith — it had to be Smith — was a pale man in a suit, with glazed blue eyes and a slight, waspish body. Weak but with a workbench of shiny tools and no reservations about tying girls up and beating the shit out of them.

Up until now, Jo had known nothing about him save that he was rich and had a boner for ancient witchcraft.

Now she knew a lot more.

She blinked to stay conscious, twisting her hands behind her at the rope that was knotted tightly and straining to look at the room behind her. There was no sign of Bela but she couldn't help but notice the metal morgue table though, gleaming in the center of the room with some scary-looking leather restraints.

"Good evening," Smith said, and Jo jerked her head back to find him surveying her in a chilling, impersonal gaze.

Jo scoffed. "Good, huh?"

Smith leaned in close, and Jo struggled at the rope binding her wrists. It rubbed, a raw feeling. 

"How did you find this place?"

"I'm not the only one who knows," Jo said. "People know where I am, and they'll come and find you. And you won't like what happens next."

"It'll be far too late by then," he said. "The ritual will already be complete."

"The ritual? You mean that poorly translated spell? Buddy you're going to want to listen to what I have to tell you—" 

Jo knew how to fight, but she had no way of blocking the punch that hit her on the side of the face. She blinked away stars.

Smith leaned in. "Now, now—"

Jo spit a mouthful of blood at him.

Smith paused, a look of real disgust on his face. He took a monogrammed handkerchief from his front pocket and wiped the blood from his cheek and then his shirt front. He considered her for a long moment, before punching her in the ribs.

"Ah, that smarts." Jo laughed, trying to catch her breath. "Hit a girl while she's down, huh? That your style?

Just five minutes ago she'd been on a rescue mission: save the girl, save the day. Now here she was, bleeding and tied up in some psycho witch-wannabe's basement. As she craned her neck again, she saw that a creepy cage stood menacingly on the far wall.

She'd wanted to go off on her own, to hunt, to save people from monsters. Turns out people were the worst monsters of all. Jo had to laugh at the irony of it. 

Smith leaned in. "What's so funny?"

She grinned. "You are."

In just five minutes, everything had gone to hell.

She tipped her head back to level him a look. "I mean honestly, what kind of monster locks girls up in his basement? A really pathetic one, that's who. Get a life, Smith."

He walked a slow circle around her. "Now, now…Who's the monster here? Breaking into my home, killing my security."

She tugged at the ropes again, feeling them loosen enough to give one hand some room to move. 

"I killed your security? Well...that's not exactly accurate..." The two guys had accidentally shot each other, so—

"I hope you learned your lesson," he said, taking her by the hair again and leering into her face. 

Her hands were free now, the rope falling away. "Oh yeah?" She grinned at him with blood on her tongue, drying on her lips. 

"No one touches my knives," he said.

It was a good thing Jo had her gun in her bra then, wasn't it? In one fluid moment, Jo flipped the chair from under her in a crash, and landed on her feet.

Smith had taken a break from kicking the shit out of her, mainly because Jo had her Walther PPK James Bond pistol trained at his ugly face. 

Jo rolled her shoulder, testing to see if it was broken. It wasn't. 

"Now listen to me! Wherever you heard about the daggers, whoever gave you that spell...You've been lied to. Because the only thing that spell is going to achieve is opening a door into hell— And not like, metaphorical pitchfork hell. Literal frozen hell, complete with hell spawn and endless darkness."

Smith paid this no attention. "You won't shoot," he said, grinning down the tiny barrel, apparently unfazed by being ten seconds from getting his brains blown out. "I know you won't." 

He took a step closer.

"You want to fucking bet?" Jo said, kicking the chair aside and wincing at the stab of pain in her left ankle but holding her gun steady.

"Oh, I know you're capable," he said. "I can recognize the killer in you. But if you pulled the trigger, what would become of your little friend, hm?"

"I'd leave with her, because you'd be dead. Now step the fuck back." Jo shook her head, refusing to be drawn in. "And besides, she's not my friend."

"Is that so? Because I would think you running into certain death to save her implied that she was."

"Nuh uh," Jo countered.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Nope."

Smith sighed. "This is getting tiresome. Drop your gun or she's dead." 

The sound of a gun cocking behind her made Jo spare a quick glance, and she swore under her breath. A second man had arrived from another door along the wall. 

"Meet my butler, Larry," Smith said. "He tends to shoot before he thinks. Bad, Larry."

Larry trained his gun on the cage.

"Bela Talbot, I am going to kill you..." Jo breathed, staring at the gun, now sure that she was in the darkness behind the bars.

Of course cursing Bela's name under her breath would do little to get her out of this situation, trapped as she was in this basement with blood in her mouth. But it was Bela's fault she was here at all, and that deserved a little cursing.

There was a long pause as Jo held her gun on Smith and Larry the butler held his on Bela. For the first time, Jo wondered if she would get out of this alive.

Her mind was racing but she could see no way out other than surrendering now and later finding a way out.

Smith leaned closer, until Jo's gun was almost brushing the skin of his forehead. He whispered, "I know you recognize the killer in me, too."

"We're nothing alike."

"You're right. You care about her and I don't. Which means she's dead in three...two…"

Jo dropped her gun. It clattered to her feet and Smith kicked it aside like he was ready, like he'd been sure of this outcome all along.

"Now then," he gestured to the cage. "After you."

Jo went, although turning her back on guys like this made every one of her instincts burn.

When she was close enough, Larry pulled the door open and shoved her inside. She landed hard, trying and failing to roll to absorb the fall. She swore, and levered herself up instantly on an elbow to glare at them both. The door clanged shut behind her.

It wasn't so dark that she couldn't see that the dark shape she'd seen was in fact a familiar figure, lounging against the wall. Bela was there, barely a hair out of order. But as she moved towards her in the darkness, Jo caught sight of the dried blood on the side of her face.

Jo turned to glare at Smith. "When I get out of here I'm going to smash your ugly face in," she told him.

"It will all be over soon," he said. "The spell channels more power when the moon is new, so we'll begin shortly."

Smith drew back from the cage, wiping his hands on a handkerchief Larry was already holding out to him, as if the gleaming cage bars were somehow filthy.

"Farewell for now," he told her, and turned on his heel and left. Larry sent her a sneer before and following him out.

"Creep," Jo muttered and waited until Larry had finished taking his time about walking up the basement stairs before crawling desperately toward Bela.

"Hi," she whispered, so relieved to see her she could break down like a child.

Bela tipped her head back, a familiar smirk on her face. "I wondered whether you were stupid enough to follow me in."

Jo surveyed her. Bela's temple was bloody but the cut didn't look deep. Even so, she wished she knew just a little bit more about the type of first aid that relied on antiseptic so she wouldn't have to rely so much on the first aid that used whiskey. 

She didn't reach out to touch, no matter how much she wanted to. She settled next to her instead, a space between their shoulders, and tipped her head back against the wall. "Speaking of stupid...Help me out here. How _did_ this all go down? You meet a creepy dude at a bar or something? And when he asks you to collect magical weapons for him, you say, _sure, that sounds like a good plan_?"

Bela rolled her eyes. "Give me _some_ credit. If you must know, I was originally contracted to find him a very powerful object."

"Oh yeah? Get lost on the way to that and end up here?"

Bela ignored her. "It was a rabbit's foot, and it was worth more than either of our lives."

"Really." Jo frowned. "Like a fuzzy good luck charm you buy at a crap magic store?"

"Yes, except a real one. To a man like Smith — to someone who's health is failing — well, I confess I understand a bit. I'd do the same thing, try for any magic, no matter how impossible."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's a haemophiliac and he's getting on a bit, he's..." Bela hesitated. "Desperate. And he offered me a large sum of money to find him this rabbit's foot — this lucky charm — so that he would never die. And I all but had it in the bag when those brother friends of yours muddled the whole thing up in that very special way they have."

Jo grimaced. Sam and Dean might mean well, but they weren't the easiest of people. 

Bela sighed. "Anyhow, once the charm was gone I had to deal with a very unhappy buyer. Smith. He told me that he had a new job for me to make up for it, so I took it."

"He asked you to find the daggers," Jo guessed.

Bela nodded. "I would have gone underground, even though the loss would have been financially devastating, but Smith is a very powerful man."

"Powerfully crazy," Jo felt the need to clarify.

"Yes, aren't they all. He has some skill hiding it." Bela looked disgusted with herself at being fooled. "So by the time I realised what I'd signed myself up for in dealing with him, I knew too much for him to just let it — or me — go. I don't particularly fancy dying before my time, so I told myself it was this last job."

Jo clenched her fists, but kept listening.

"He wanted these two daggers as recompense for the rabbit's foot. I thought it was a fair deal, seemed a bit less dangerous in fact, almost child's play. Your Mr. Drake was something of a challenge, retired or no, he was still a hunter. But you saw that mansion we went to. I'm always amazed at how poorly rich people guard their things. Once you've a way in through the gates, you find they don't lock up the drawers." Bela gestured to the basement, to their cage. "Present situation excluded. Now that I've delivered the goods, I apparently constitute a loose end. Why he's keeping me alive is unclear to me, but I do know that he's been raving about going to heaven for the past three hours. I couldn't get anything concrete out of him."

"Oh brother," Jo sighed. "Well, what I was attempting to tell him, is that Ash thinks there's a translation error in the spell."

"Oh?"

"Yep. He ran it through a cryptography program he's loaded up with a buttload of ancient languages, and I regret to inform you, there's one vital detail Smith isn't aware of, thanks to scholarly error."

Bela's jaw clenched. "Let me guess, it involves a lot of blood."

"Considering the ancient creepy fucking daggers, I think we should have guessed that. Plus, I think our boy Smith has a knife fetish." 

Jo nodded to the silver operating table and the array of gleaming medical equipment near the door. 

"Anyway," she said. "When used simultaneously, the daggers open up a gate to hell."

Bela snorted. "Not heaven? Well, that's a slight difference."

"Awkward, right?" Jo agreed. "I almost want to let him do the ritual just to see the look on his face when a demon devours him whole."

Bela shivered beside her and Jo cleared her throat. Now was not the time to joke, perhaps.

"Basically just don't touch both daggers at once. I don't know what happens then, probably activates the spell. Probably best if we don't touch them at once, either. Basically, just don't touch them at all. Worst case scenario, we all die."

Bela was silent for a long time after that. "Well, shit," she finally said.

"You have a way with words."

Bela made a careless gesture with her hand. "Educated at St. Swithun's," she said. But when she continued, her voice was quiet with despair like Jo had never heard from her, "We're not getting out of this alive, are we?" 

A pipe dripped somewhere in the basement, water falling sharply. Through the small window, Jo could just make out the faint dots of stars in the moonless sky. 

Jo didn't respond, didn't have an answer to give. She just slipped her hand into Bela's in the dark and let that be answer enough.

"Not long now," a voice said, sudden and grating, and Jo jumped away from Bela. She reached for her empty holster before remembering that her pistol was lain out on the table with the rest of the weapons.

Smith continued down the stairs at a leisurely gait until he was an arm's length of the cage bars. 

Jo got to her knees to face him. "Listen to me! The spell isn't what you think it is!"

"Shut up," he said, mildly. "You should be thanking me."

"Thanking you?"

"Yes. I'm including you in what will prove to be a miracle. Entering the realm of the gods, walking among them. A cure!" He smiled into the middle distance. "More than a cure. Eternal glory."

From his air of fanatical serenity, and the way his gaze sometimes seeming to be fixed on something Jo couldn't see, Jo doubted there was anything she could say to make him listen.

"That's not something mortals should mess with," Bela tried.

Smith advanced on them, and Jo wondered if this was it, if this was the moment where it was him or them. She was weaponless and unable to save them. She didn't know what to do.

"Look," Bela said in placating tones. "I understand the need to find help where there seems to be none, to save yourself at all costs, but this is not the way."

Smith reached into the cage and Jo winced as he took Bela's chin in his hand. He shook her chin gently, like she was a small child he was reprimanding.

"I wouldn't have needed to find this workaround if you hadn't bungled up the last job I assigned you, now would I?" He shook his head. "If you'd have been at all competent you wouldn't have to die. But you did fail, and so here we are."

Jo felt rage burning up in her wondering why Bela didn't pull away. 

"Are you done?" Bela said, just as condescending.

Smith let go abruptly and stood.

"Not long now," he repeated, and went to the stairs, muttering to himself. "There had to be a way. I knew it, and I found it."

When the door clicked shut, Jo slumped back.

"Jesus," she sighed. "What a psycho. I should say now would be the time to lockpick us out of here and make our hasty exit, but we can't just let him unleash hellspawn on the earth."

"Ahem." 

When Jo looked over, Bela was pulling a black bag from the V of her shirt. 

"Look what I found," Bela said, shaking the bag gently as the unmistakable shapes of the daggers clinked together. 

Jo's jaw dropped. "Dude, you're like a freaking Houdini! How many scarves do you have in there?" 

She pretended to go for Bela's shirt front and Bela laughed and pushed her away. But she left her hand on Jo's shoulder, eyes sparkling. 

"My hero," Jo said, earnestly. And she meant it. If Bela could steal something so large off of Smith, stealing Jo's locket must have been child's play. She was strangely proud of Bela. "You're a total badass, you know that?"

Bela tossed her hair. "Thanks. Now what do you say we get out of here?"

Jo was beyond ready to get out of there.

However, she felt cloth under her hand, the shape of the dagger. It seemed to be stopping her from moving, she felt stuck to that spot on the concrete floor. 

She wondered distantly how her hand had reached out without her realizing, and thought that she should have known better than to tread so lightly around powerful magic.

That was her last coherent thought, before she had the dagger in her fist, the metal of the hilt warm and dangerous where it fit perfectly to her palm.

"Jo," Bela breathed.

When Jo looked up to meet her eyes, the room blurred like she was experiencing moments a split second too slow, her vision tracking dreamily as she found Bela's face. Bela's dark lashes were low as she leaned in toward Jo with a look that was downright sultry.

"Bela?" Jo whispered.

Bela had drawn the second dagger from the cloth and traced it lazily down Jo's arm, the pressure light, infuriatingly so. Jo dipped forward and pressed Bela down into the concrete floor of the cage, Bela following her lead eagerly.

The knife in Jo's hand seemed to be pulsing, shocks of feel-good heat that sent shivers down Bela's pale stomach when Jo lifted her shirt and dragged the blade over her skin. Jo watched, transfixed, as a trail of goosebumps followed the tip of the dagger.

"Jo," Bela pleaded, biting her lip and gasping as Jo circled her navel. Jo sliced up with the smallest bit of pressure, cutting cleanly through the center join of Bela's bra. 

Bela gasped as it fell open, exposing her breasts. Jo had fantasized about eliciting those sounds from her but never believed it would become a reality, not like this, never as good as this.

Jo raised up and over her, and when she looked down, she saw that Bela's eyes were all pupil, her lips pink and parted.

Jo took her mouth in a kiss, hot and deep, and squirmed as Bela's hand went to her belt with no ceremony. Jo spread her legs as the handle of the dagger nudging at her panties, and moaned at the implication. "Bela, do it," she said. 

She wanted it more than anything. She bucked up, cutting Bela's neck the smallest bit, just over her collarbone. She watched the blood bead there, finding to her surprise and pleasure how she longed to sink the blade into Bela's skin, knowing Bela would let her do it.

They would kill each other, Jo realized suddenly, heartbeat picking up. They would kill each other, and it would be the most beautiful thing.

The door to the cage clattered open then, and Jo's hand burned with white fire when the dagger was wrested from her hand.

She scrambled away from the door and away from Bela, her head suddenly, soberingly clear as she heaved for breath and locked eyes with a bald man in a suit who was tucking both daggers back into the bag.

For the briefest moment Jo thought it might be help, that maybe this man was a hunter she didn't recognize who had somehow caught wind of what was going on

But all at once it hit her. The butler.

"Fuck!" she said, hurriedly doing up her jeans and not thinking about anything that had just happened, or what had almost happened. 

Bela looked to be in similar shape as she crawled away from Jo, tugging down her shirt, flustered and pink-cheeked. She was somehow barefoot.

"Larry, fetch me the daggers, will you?" Smith said from the stairs. "It looks like our little thieves got enthusiastic about starting the ritual but we can't be having that, now can we? All in due time, ladies."

"It's almost nine p.m., sir," Larry announced, apparently unphased at what he'd just walked in on. He locked the cage door behind him, the bag in his possession.

"Excellent," said Smith. "Let's not forget the ritualistic tarp to catch the blood. I won't have this floor stained with the foul stuff."

Larry started to a corner of the basement — to get the tarp, Jo assumed — but paused when Smith called over his shoulder, "Oh and Larry?"

"Sir?"

"A glass of ice water, please. You know how I get parched."

"To your left, sir. By the lamp."

"Ah, wonderful. You really do complete me, Larry."

Larry laid out the tarp on the ground, then retrieved a gun from his pocket which he held at the ready, pointed at the cage lest they try to escape.   
Smith snapped on latex gloves and rolled his shirtsleeves to the elbow. 

"You have any ideas?" Jo whispered. She wondered if the ritual would involve a replay of what happened moments before and felt a shameful shiver of lust crawl over her skin. She couldn't meet Bela's eyes.

"Not at the moment, no," Bela replied from the other side of the cage where she was pressed against the bars.

It was no time for guilt. It hadn't been their fault and it wouldn't help them get out of there that Bela apparently couldn't bear to be anywhere near her.

"You know," Smith said, conversationally from where he was opening a rather large and decaying book. His voice grated on Jo's ears. "My father was a hoarder. A 'collector' he'd say, but the amount of junk he amassed was pretty dire. You may have noticed how it's affected me. I really hate mess, can't stand it. Which is yet another reason I can hardly wait to transcend this earthly plane."

"More like go to hell," Jo said tiredly, and Smith whirled around, eyes intense. 

"Shut up! Now be a good girl and behave or I'll have to restrain you. Because I will—" he said, gesturing to the table. "Restrain you."

Jo's eyes flicked to it. 

"So we're the sacrifice then," she confirmed.

"Why yes. I thought you said you'd read the spell." He tutted. " _And so rending the flesh, virgins both, shall purity rend the earth in kind—_ "

He was interrupted by Bela's low laughter, which got louder at his confusion.

"Virgins?" she said sending a smile Jo's way. "Who said anything about virgins?"

Smith froze. "Pardon?" 

"Yeah, dude," Jo said. "Have you got the wrong ladies, or what."

She clung onto Bela's idea. If Smith wasn't going to believe her about the spell, maybe they could make the argument that they were unsuitable sacrifices. Maybe they could still scrape out of this.

In the moment Smith surveyed them, Jo thought it would work.

When he smiled again, however, there was something truly unsettling in his eyes. "I don't believe you," he decided. "And if what you say is true, and if the spell doesn't work, I can just try again on the next new moon."

Jo stared. "You'd kill more girls than just us? What are you going to do, go on a killing spree?"

"For eternal life? I'd do anything." 

He flipped to what appeared to be the correct page of the book, settling a weight on the page so it could be easily read. He turned back to Jo, and explained, like he really wanted to convince them that anything he was doing was at all sane, "Look, you came in here to the rescue, knowing full well that failure was a possibility, that you could end up sacrificing your life for this girl, this _thief_. Now what's so different about sacrificing this girl to save myself from my own pain? The outcome is the same. Wouldn't you say, Larry?"

"Yes," Larry agreed.

Smith placed stones on the table on what appeared to be the points of a compass, and placed a heavy bowl of stone in the center. He filled it with a fine sand that flamed into life at the touch of a match.

"Someone has to die here, there's no question about that," he continued. "But who says it has to be me? What's so wrong about fighting to live?"

"Well put, sir," Larry said, apparently moved to near tears. 

"Oh come on, Larry," Bela said, sounding disgusted. "I've seen better performances at a village fete."

"Larry, the daggers," Smith said, and in rehearsed tones began to chant the spell.

This was all happening too fast. In moments, they could be dead. Jo had so much life to live, and it would be stupid to go out like this. And Bela...well, there was still so much they had to do together. Jo felt like they'd just touched the tip of the iceberg when it came to her, when it came to them, and it couldn't end like this.

The words Smith chanted were old, very old. You could hear it in the way they came alive once they were uttered, like they'd been long quiet and dormant. The room became colder, which was never a good sign, and Jo's breath began to come out in puffs. From the strong smell of incense, she thought the powder might not be sand in fact, but frankincense.

Jo looked to the cage door again. If there were ever a time to pick the lock it would be now. The spell had been said, but it wasn't over yet.

But Larry still had the gun trained on them, so that either way they were dead.

"Larry," Smith said, "Bring me the daggers."

"Yes, sir." Larry left his post, and delivered the bag.

"Thank you, Larr— Again?" Smith roared. He upended the bag and Jo let out a shocked laugh when Bela's shoes clattered to the floor.

Bela pulled back the bundled edge of her jacket to show Jo what she had stolen, and Jo understood now why she'd plastered herself to that side of the cage, so they would be as far from touching as possible. 

Bela slid the daggers to Jo, and resumed holding on to the cage bars for dear life.

Jo didn't think, just acted. She hurled one of the daggers at Larry, who let out a gurgled noise as it planted in his side. As they all watched, he groaned and fell to his knees. Jo thanked everything she believed in that it wasn't a killing blow, but knew that if he didn't get stitched up soon, he'd die. She wondered with numb terror what happened to people who killed humans, whether there was an afterlife and punishment for that. 

"Damn you!" Smith bellowed, advancing on the cage, and Jo sent the second dagger skidding across the floor toward him, knowing the effect of the magic, knowing that he'd be compelled to pick it up even if he didn't want to, and then she and Bela would be able to escape.

She was right. Smith couldn't resist the dagger's pull, wasn't ready for it, and he picked it up with a jerky motion. His face registered surprise and dismay, and he took one faltering step toward the cage as if to storm their way. But the magic of the daggers took hold, and a visible frisson of magic shook through him and then through Larry. As Jo watched, the two turned to one another, lust transforming their features.

Through the small window, Jo could see that outside, the sky was dark. The air in the room was impossibly cold, thrumming with the spell which had been set into motion.

"Larry," Smith groaned, staggering toward his butler.

"Sir," Larry responded, his eyelids heavy with lust and blood loss. 

His face conveyed pure ecstasy when Smith took his mouth in a ravenous kiss. 

"Ugh," Jo gagged, unable to look away as Smith devoured Larry's mouth, blood soaking Larry's shirt and pants. 

When Smith groaned again, Jo snapped out of it.

The gun was no longer on them. She fumbled her lockpick kit out off the back of her belt and crawled toward the door of the cage.

When she glanced up, Smith was trailing his dagger up Larry's shirt, slicing clean up the front, buttons popping every which way to reveal a muscled chest gleaming with sweat.

Jo glared over her shoulder when Bela let out a whistle.

"What?" Bela said, innocently. But then her face twisted into a mix of intrigued skepticism when Smith ordered, "Get on your hands and knees, Larry."

"Good lord," she muttered.

"My pleasure, sir," Larry said, and tugged down his trousers, turning to present his ass to Smith. 

Blood was dripping from his side, pooling on the floor, and Jo thought that no one of them had ever had a chance here. Magic was an old and dangerous art that bowed to no one, could only be bent to the will of someone with discipline, who approached it humbly.

Smith slapped Larry across the ass and Larry moaned in what Jo thought was more pain than pleasure.

"Nevermind, I do not want to be watching this," Bela said, half-frantic. "Can't you lockpick any faster?"

"Let's hope I can," Jo said, and tried to block out the sound of the one long groan of one man entering another in total bliss. 

"Oh sweet mother of--" 

"If they...uh...complete the act," Jo called over the loud sounds of very rough and unlubricated anal sex. "Then they could very well complete the spell. Who knows if the bit about being virgins was right or not."

"Well, hurry it up then! From the sounds of things, they're not going to take long about this." She gasped. "Wow, that man is hung like a packhorse. Good show, Larry."

As if on queue, Larry screamed, a sound that seemed to rip through him as his orgasm overtook him. When Jo glanced up it was to see his body had collapsed to the ground, body limp like a rag doll, blood gushing from his side where Smith was twisting the dagger in, riding him furiously.

"That was quick," Bela said and Jo shot her a look to communicate just how not the time it was for snarky comments. Bela looked very pale as she leaned into the cage bars again, stretching out an arm as far as she could, hand outstretched. "Smith, give us the keys."

Smith's eyes were rolling back in his head as he pumped his hips against Larry's prone form.

"Smith!" Jo yelled, and Smith jerked momentarily from his reverie. He turned his head to them, and Bela said, "If you keep doing this, you'll die and never get to heaven. You'll be stuck here forever, or worse, opened up in Hell. Blood and guts everywhere. Give us the keys, it's the only way you'll survive."

But Smith had looked away and kept going.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Jo said, trying to jiggle the picks without throwing up.

Which was when the lock fell into place and the cage door swung open. Smith was angling his blade at his own neck when Jo raced forward.

"Smith!" She shouted, and sent the blade clattering away with a karate kick to his hand. She kicked out again, sending him tumbling off of Larry's body. 

Bela dislodged the dagger from Larry's side, then ran to take the other from where it had skidded under the workbench. She then stood on the opposite side of the room to put them in the bag.

"I'll bury these far, far away," she said. "And in the meantime, no touching. I know what you're like."

"Oh sure," Jo said, somewhat miffed that Bela hadn't noticed her impressive display of competence just then.

Meanwhile, Smith lay on the floor, seemingly knocked out, at least unconscious enough that Jo could drag him to the operating table and pull him up onto it without a struggle. She strapped him down securely with the leather straps. His pants were around his ankles, his unspent dick hanging out against his thigh, but Jo wasn't getting near that with a ten foot pole.

This done, and the danger seemingly over, her eyes found Bela's from across the room. Bela inclined her head. There was nothing to say, really. Not until they were clear out of there. And Jo realized with a rush of relief that saving the day was very much a possibility now.

Smith awoke then a moment later, rolling his head. Jo could spot the second he recognized where he was, on his back and restrained on his own table, when his eyes widened and he began yelling.

"No! Don't kill me! I have gold, so much gold. And horses. Have anything you want!"

Jo could see the whites of his eyes as he pleaded with her. It was disgusting, and she felt sick to her stomach. She stayed a good distance away. "You know, it's a pity you're human."

Smith's eyebrows drew together, and it would have been really hilarious how quizzical he looked, except that Jo was exhausted and covered in minor cuts from a set of cursed daggers. She probably had some internal bruising, and also the love of her recent life was filing her nails with a piece of sandpaper from the tool bench.

"Exactly, I'm human!" he said. "Don't kill me."

"Oh I won't," she said, and for a moment he looked relieved. Until she cracked her neck and said, "Yep, I'm going to have to go legal on this one."

"What do you..."

"I'm going to call the actual cops," she said, and she heard Bela sputter in the background. Jo shook her head, feeling a fondness for this girl she'd somehow picked up, who'd never done an honest day's work in her life and had no plans to reform. Bela was on the wrong side of the law and proud of it. 

"Which is lucky for you," Jo continued to Smith. "Seeing as I don't think you'd like my kind of vigilante justice. You should see what my momma's taught me to do with a blade."

When no answer was forthcoming, Jo punched him in the nose despondently and took out her cell phone to dial 9-1-1. 

"Yes, hello?" she said. "There's been a murder. A strange man killed my neighbor with a big knife and tried to kill me. There's blood everywhere, come quick." She leaned in to stare Smith in the eyes, pronouncing over the phone, "I'm so scared."

Then, she hung up.

Taking a sharpie from the bench, she scribbled out a note on a post-it.

"Now the police are going to find you and figure out what to do with you," she told him. "And I'll rest easy knowing that I stopped a major disaster."

Smith struggled in his restraints, and gnashed his teeth. "I'll be back. And when I find you—"

Jo cut him off, shoving a rag in his mouth. "Shut up," she said.

On the way out, Bela swiped the wallet off the workbench and Smith still had the gall to struggle, outraged. Jo slapped him across the cheek.

"Hey," she barked. "You know how much it's going to cost for her to stitch that gash you put in her head? Yeah, I thought so."

"NHS, darling," Bela sing-songed as they made their way up the stairs.

"It's the principle of the thing, Talbot."

When they exited through the back, Jo could hear sirens ringing out in the distance, and the need to flee the scene felt fresh and new. Bela at her elbow as they left through the backyard. The pink of pre-dawn was brilliant, birds chirping in an apple tree they sprinted by the next yard over and sprinklers shot up from the green front lawn like a fountain. Life was a goddamn paradise.

"So," Bela said when Jo's car was visible down the street. She had her hands shoved in the pockets of Jo's hoodie, the red bringing out the pink of her lips, the sparkle in her eyes as she gave Jo a real smile. "That was a nice villain speech down there."

"Thanks."

Bela nudged her as they walked. "You're a real hardass, you know that?"

"I am who I am," Jo told her. "And I'm not apologizing for that any more. Not for any of it."

She was 21 but felt very young as they got into the car and set out. Their fingers brushed on the chapstick in the center console and Bela didn't ask to be dropped off at some stolen car or the bus station. Jo set them off toward the highway, wanted to drive with Bela to the middle of nowhere and all over the map.


	5. Epilogue

It was a sunny afternoon again, Jo back behind the bar and Old Mike and a couple other hunters on the other side of it, when the door swung open and a familiar figure appeared.

"Surprised to see me?" Bela asked, smirking like a cat.

Jo twisted up her mouth to stop from grinning back. She leaned against the bar. "You just keep stopping by, I'm not gonna be surprised any more."

"Well, I feel extremely welcome. Thanks."

Jo waited for Bela to make some move, to ask for a drink or something so she could stop posing there trying to look cute in her old t-shirt and Walmart jeans. And finally Bela took a seat on a stool, nodding, "Ash," but with her eyes still stuck on Jo. 

"Long time no see," Ash said and given Jo a look that meant he was happy for her, that made Jo blush and shake her head.

If someone had told her a year ago that this would be her life, that she'd have this, she'd have called them a fool. But here Bela was, at the bar where Jo'd grown up. Somewhere along the line, Jo had gotten ideas about them, and the spark had turned to a flame.

A door creaked behind her and her momma said, "Jo, offer the girl a lemonade."

Bela arched an eyebrow at Jo, and said, "Thank you, Ellen."

Jo fought an urge to stick out her tongue — she wasn't five — and sighed like it was some big request. She couldn't help but throw a smile over her shoulder when she reached into the fridge for the jug of the fresh-squeezed lemonade.

Ellen had been in the back but she came out to grab the tray from the cash register.

"How's business?" Bela asked. "You're looking well."

"Everything's fine, thanks for asking." Ellen nodded to her. "This one's got some manners, Joanna. You might want to take a page from her book."

"As if I could ever steal from a professional thief," Jo muttered into the freezer, scooping ice chips into a glass.

"What was that?"

She closed the freezer and smiled sweetly. "Nothing, Momma."

Ellen squinted at her and then turned to say, "You make yourself at home, Bela. And don't mind my girl, she was raised to think killing ghouls was an American pastime. All her father's fault, god rest his soul." 

"Ghouls, huh?"

"Not by myself, but the final kill was on me," Jo said, trying and failing not to sound pleased. "Dad took me out of gym class on a doctor's note."

Ellen disappeared into the back again. Ash at least pretended to become absorbed in something on his computer, and Bela sat at the bar, her chin on a hand, and watched Jo pour lemonade into the glass. Jo slid it over and then leaned back against the opposite counter on her elbows, casual-like. Bela sipped and nodded once, and Jo felt like making lemonade had been her best decision all week.

"So," she said. Bela met her eyes and Jo felt a curl of happiness in her chest. Pathetic, but Jo couldn't be troubled to care. "Where's the wind taken you?"

Bela sipped from her straw delicately. "I'm a professional, Jo. I can't let on about my private affairs."

"I am asking about business," Jo argued.

"It's all private," Bela said. Jo pretended to pout, until Bela gave in and said, "But maybe a trade."

"What kind of trade?"

Bela's mouth curved up in a smile.

 

 

 

 

She was gone again in the morning, and this time felt different, like something personal, a subtle but all-encompassing disappointment. Jo stayed in bed, putting a Smallville disc into her laptop and staring at the screen for an hour, barely watching and aware she was moping.

And when she got too hungry to stay in bed any more, she padded downstairs to find Ash.

He was already up, seated at the edge of the pool table, flipping his long hair while he showed Bela something on his jenky laptop that he'd pieced together from a pile of scrap parts and twisted wires one afternoon last fall.

Jo stopped short with her hand on the railing. "You're still here," she said.

Bela rolled her eyes at Jo's surprise. "It seems I am. I thought about waking you, but I didn't want to incur your wrath, so I came downstairs to see about an early lunch."

Jo looking to the dusty clock hanging in a corner. "It's eight o'clock in the morning. It's—"

"Spain," Bela pointed at herself. "Why do you think I looked so unkempt yesterday when I staggered in here."

Jo was blown away by the fact that Bela had been in a different country a day ago, but even more so about her self-assessment. "That was your idea of unkempt?"

"For some." Bela looked Jo over from head to toe, pointedly. Jo was in her hoodie and the same thin jeans as yesterday, because she'd felt that sort of self-pity that meant a warm jacket and a plate of bacon for breakfast.

"All right, we're in," Ash said, interrupting the moment. He ran his fingers back through his hair and it stayed there, sticking up straight. "Now you're sure about this?"

"I thought I was paying you not to ask any questions," Bela said, although with some humor.

"I like this one, Jo," Ash muttered to her, tapping away at the keyboard. "Keep her around, don't shoot her."

Jo shifted on her feet. "I don't shoot people."

"Right, right."

"It was only the once! And I was twelve!"

"BB guns don't make friends," Ash reminded her, and then he flicked a glance at Bela. "And neither do DDoS attacks, might I add."

"I can still cut a zero off that figure I offered," Bela said.

"I stand corrected, DDoS attacks are god's gift to my wallet." Ash hit a few more keys with a flourish and then pressed enter. "Et voila. Finito. I'll take cash or money order." 

Bela produced an envelope from nowhere and Ash folded it up and stuck it in his back pocket. He jumped off the table and gave them a salute.

"See you around, Bela." He looked at Jo. "And you, watch your balls."

She waved him off. "Yeah, yeah."

They didn't look at each other until he'd left. Bela took a seat on the edge of the pool table, folding one leg under her. "Now that that's settled," she said.

Jo gave her a disapproving look. "What was that about? Paying off my friends before breakfast?"

Bela shrugged, and shifted closer when Jo came to sit next to her. "Setting up dominoes," she told her. "Nothing you need to worry about."

"Over and done with and on to the next thing?"

"Maybe. You going to try to stop me?"

"You wish," Jo said and kissed her quick on the mouth. And then a few times more until Bela pulled her in by the belt loops and made it slow, until there was a creak at the steps outside and the first of the customers trickled in.

"Looks like that's my cue," Bela said and stepped away.

"What's next? Paris? Milan?"

Bela looked at her, face deadly serious as she leaned close. "Stealing your heart, hopefully."

"Never," Jo laughed. But she felt her heart kick up anyway. 

Trust a thief, Jo thought. Even when Jo thought she was on her guard, Bela had a way of touching her to the core. They stepped outside together, elbows brushing.

"We'll see," said Bela, her mouth curling at the edges. "But if you must know, I don't do anything for less than twenty grand."

They left each other at Bela's car. That was probably stolen, too.


End file.
